Today, more people survive cancer than ever before. Over 60% of all patients in Austria survive the disease.
This is due to improved diagnostic options and early detection, but also to a multitude of new, modern cancer therapies developed through decades of research.
With many forms of cancer, patients can live well and for a long time even with the disease. Not all diseases can be cured, but many can be kept at bay for many years, enabling patients to maintain a good quality of life.
A Breakthrough in Cancer Research
Cancers originate in cells, meaning errors in genetic information occur during cell division. Therefore, the decoding of the human genome in 2001 represented a milestone for cancer research. Since then, specialists have been able to better understand the behavior of cancer cells triggered by genetic changes.
Today, oncology is one of the medical specialties in which the most research projects and clinical trials are being conducted. The number of new approvals for innovative drugs and therapies has increased dramatically, especially in the last five years.
A tailored therapy for every patient?
The major advance is that we can treat different types of cancer more specifically and effectively, with increasingly fewer side effects.
Personalized medicine means that therapy is individually tailored to the biological characteristics of the tumor, combining the right medications with other therapies such as immunotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery.
New Drug Therapies
Major advances have been made in immunotherapy in recent years. This has revolutionized cancer treatment in many areas over the past decade and has led to increased years of life with a good quality of life for many cancer patients. The immune system is specifically stimulated using antibodies to recognize and destroy tumor cells.
However, many unanswered questions remain. Why immunotherapy fails in some patients is still unclear and is the subject of numerous research projects.
New, targeted therapies are now available that directly target the biochemical processes responsible for tumor growth. Their goal is to stop the growth and spread of the tumor and essentially cause the cancer to regress.
Chemotherapy advancements are also increasingly making it possible to tailor the effectiveness of drugs even more closely to specific molecular targets of cancer cells and to administer therapeutics only to patients whose tumors contain these target structures. This can reduce side effects.
Chemotherapeutics are increasingly being combined with molecularly active substances or immunotherapy to achieve better outcomes.
Surgery
When it comes to curing patients of a localized tumor, surgical removal of the tumor remains one of the best options.
Minimally invasive and function-preserving procedures are becoming increasingly common in surgery, and these procedures are be less stressful for patients.
Challenges in Cancer Research
The greatest challenge lies in the fact that cancer is not a single disease, but rather encompasses hundreds of forms of disease that manifest differently in patients and can also change during the course of the disease.
There is no single “cancer cell” that proliferates and forms a homogeneous mass. The tumor develops over time and is heterogeneous, meaning it has very different structures. Different parts of the tumor can be differently sensitivite to therapy.
Cancer Treatment in the Future
Cancer probably develops over a longer period of time than previously assumed. This opens up new possibilities. If we can better identify early forms of the disease or precancerous conditions, we can derive measures to prevent them from progressing.
For example, it would be possible to induce the death of cells with certain changes or to minimize risks through early screening or vaccination.
Through the interaction of state-of-the-art diagnostics, high-precision medications, and intelligent information technologies, more and more people will be able to overcome their cancer with tailored therapies.
Will we be able to completely defeat cancer?
Perhaps not. As we continue to live longer—as is the current trend—cells will always degenerate and tumors will develop in old age. But we should be able to enable the repair of our cells for a long lifespan to prevent premature deaths from cancer.
That would certainly be a victory.
The private hospitals of Mavie Med (formerly PremiQaMed Group) stand for excellent medical care with high service quality and see themselves as health partner for everyone who wants to stay healthy or get healthier.
Comprehensive Cancer Care Vienna – is a network of top specialists and leading institutes in Vienna that treat patients with cancer in the Vienna based Mavie Med hospitals at a high academic level.
The mission of the Center is to give patients with a cancer diagnosis rapid access to interdisciplinary teams of leading experts and to provide them with the most suitable, personalized and advanced treatment options.
PremiQaMed by Mavie – www.premiqamed.com