At the University of Bath, researchers believe
they have found a new method of delivering
chemotherapy to cancer patients without patients having to endure the traditional chemotherapy side effects
of hair loss and nausea. In development stages now, the method involves using tiny fibers and beads soaked in a
chemotherapy drug, which are then implanted into the cancerous area of the patient’s body. As any chemotherapy
patient knows, chemotherapy drugs are currently administered by an IV drip of toxic chemicals directly into the veins.
The benefit of this new targeted method of chemotherapy delivery will mean lower doses of chemotherapy drugs will be needed, and chemotherapy drugs will not circulate throughout the entire body, damaging healthy cells in order to destroy cancerous cells.
Known as Fibrasorb, the method was developed over the past few years, and has successfully gone through preliminary laboratory trials. The first clinical trials on volunteer patients with ovarian cancer in Avon, Somerset and Wiltshire could begin in the next few years and, if successful, the therapy would then be introduced into wider use.
1. Ah! What a novel idea? This is a more localized (focal) way of cancer treatment. As with the alternative way of delivering radiation treatments, focal treatment is concentrated in the tumor bed.
For decades, the model for cancer treatment was to do more. Now it is to do less. A malfunctioning immune system can fail to stop the growth of cancer cells.
Analysis of the records of 1.2 million cancer cases in the Surveilance, Evaluation and End Results (SEER) database showed that non-cancer deaths accounted for 21 - 37% of all deaths. The authors attributed this effect to the damage caused by cancer treatment (mainly radiotherapy and chemotherapy).
There are better ways of treating cancer patients than what has always been the standard. Cutting-edge techniques can often provide superior results over tried-and-true methods that have been around for many years.
In treating this disease, the prime principle is to not make the treatment worse than the disease, thus good treatment becomes "finesse."
Posted at 2:41PM on Mar 31st 2006 by Gregory D. Pawelski