11 Oct
Uncategorized

Basal Cell Carcinoma Cancer Symptoms, Causes, And Diagnosis

Basal cell carcinoma is one of the skin cancer types. Basal cell carcinoma starts from the abnormality of the basal cells at the genetic level.

In the appears, it presents as a slightly transparent bump on the surface of the skin, though it can take other forms

The most common cause associated with the risk of basal cell carcinomas is long-term exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from sunlight

Symptoms:

Basal cell carcinoma appears as a change in the skin, like an unhealing sore. These changes usually are the following:

• pearly white, skin-colored bump

• brown, black, or blue lesion

• brown, black, or blue lesion

• white, waxy, scar

When to consult a doctor?: the immediate time to consult your doctor is as u see changes in the appearance of the skin, like a new growth, or a recurring sore.

CAUSES: when one of the skin’s basal cells develops a mutation in its DNA, basal cell carcinoma can occur. Well!  the damage to genetic material in basal cells is due to the result of ultraviolet (UV) radiation found in sunlight that reaches the cells during prolonged exposure and in commercial tanning lamps and tanning beds, as well as per data reported in the literature.

Factors that increase the risk of basal cell carcinoma are enumerated below:

• Chronic sun exposure

• Radiation therapy

• Fair skin

• Increasing age

• family history of skin cancer

• immune-suppressing drugs

• Exposure to arsenic

• Certain rare genetic diseases including nevoid basal cell carcinoma syndrome (Gorlin-Goltz syndrome), xeroderma pigmentosum.

What are complications associated with Basal cell carcinoma?

• Basal cell carcinomas commonly relapse, even after successful treatment.

• A history of basal cell carcinoma also increases the chance of developing other types of cancer, such as squamous cell carcinoma.

• basal cell carcinoma can spread rarely

How can one reduce the risk associated with basal cell carcinoma occurrence?

• Avoid sun exposure during the day after 10.0 am till early eve as at this time sun hours are at peak

• Wear sunscreen 

• Wear protective clothing

• avoid tanning beds

• immediately report changes to your doctor

GOLD STANDARD FOR DIAGNOSIS INCLUDES BIOPSY OF THE LESION

The targeted goal of treatment for basal cell carcinoma is to remove cancer completely-with following available alternatives:

1. Mohs surgery

2. Surgical excision

3. Curettage and electrodessication

4. Radiation therapy

5. Freezing

6. Topical treatments

7. Photodynamic therapy

8. Chemotherapy

9. targeted therapy

10. Immunotherapy

11 Oct
Uncategorized

Which Cancers Are Treated With Immunotherapy?

Which cancers are treated with immunotherapy?

Immunotherapy drugs are approved to treat many types of cancer. 

But it is also a true fact that immunotherapy is not yet as widely used as surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation therapy in treating the world of oncology. 

Here it is awesome slang to shot that Immunotherapy is Impacting All Cancers

Immunotherapy is a form of cancer treatment that uses the power of the body’s immune system to prevent, control, and eliminate cancer

Exploring immunotherapies by cancer type is a pavement to a new era that is approved and proved to be efficacious:

  1. Immunotherapy for bladder cancer has a long history, including the first FDA-approved immunotherapy treatment (BCG) in 1990.

There are currently eight FDA-approved immunotherapy options for bladder cancer.

Targeted Antibodies: Enfortumab vedotin (Padcev®), Sacituzumab govitecan,  

Cancer Vaccines: Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG)

Immunomodulators: Atezolizumab (Tecentriq®), Avelumab (Bavencio®), Dostarlimab (Jemperli),  Nivolumab (Opdivo®), Pembrolizumab (Keytruda®) 

Immunotherapy has significantly reduced the risk of recurrence for bladder cancer 

  1. Immunotherapy for brain and nervous system cancer offers potential new treatment options for a devastating set of diseases.

There are currently six FDA-approved immunotherapy options for brain and nervous system cancers.

Immunomodulators: Dostarlimab (Jemperli), Pembrolizumab (Keytruda®)

Targeted Antibodies: Bevacizumab (Avastin®) approved for advanced glioblastomas, Dinutuximab (Unituxin®) approved for first-line treatment of high-risk pediatric Neuroblastoma, Naxitamab-gqgk (Danyelza®) approved in combination with GM-CSF for a subset of patients with advanced neuroblastoma

  1. There are several immunotherapy options for patients depending on breast cancer tumor type.

Targeted Antibodies: Margetuximab-cmkb (Margenza™) approved in combination with chemotherapy for subsets of patients with advanced breast cancer, Pertuzumab (Perjeta®): approved for subsets of patients with HER2-positive breast cancer, Sacituzumab govitecan (Trodelvy®): approved for subsets of patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC)

Trastuzumab (Herceptin approved for subsets of patients with HER2-positive breast cancer

Immunomodulators: Dostarlimab (Jemperli), Pembrolizumab (Keytruda®)

  1. FDA approval of several immunotherapy options for more lung cancer patients with the approvals to treat patients with immunotherapy as a first-line therapy instead of conventional treatments is new hope

Targeted Antibodies: Amivantamab (Rybrevant™): approved for subsets of patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), Bevacizumab (Avastin®): approved for subsets of patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), including as first-line therapy, Necitumumab (Portrazza®): approved for subsets of patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), including as first-line therapy, Ramucirumab (Cyramza®): approved for subsets of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), including as a first-line therapy

Immunomodulators: Atezolizumab (Tecentriq®), Cemiplimab (Libtayo®), Dostarlimab (Jemperli), Durvalumab (Imfinzi®), Ipilimumab (Yervoy®), Nivolumab (Opdivo®), Pembrolizumab (Keytruda®)

Immunotherapy harnesses the body’s own immune system to kill cancer.

Immunotherapy is an umbrella including several treatments.

Types of immunotherapy used to treat cancer. These include:

  • Immune checkpoint inhibitors: drugs that block immune checkpoints. 

    Checkpoints – keep immune responses strong by blocking them

And respond more strongly to cancer.

  • T-cell transfer therapy– boosts natural ability of T cells to fight cancer. 

Immune cells taken from tumor most active against cancer are changed in the lab to attack cancer cells

  • Monoclonal antibodies: immune system proteins created in the lab bind to specific targets on cancer cell and destroy them..
  • Treatment vaccines: work against cancer by boosting immune system’s response to cancer cells. 
  • Immune system modulators: enhance the body’s immune response against cancer by affecting  specific parts of the immune system
  • Adoptive Cell Therapies: group of treatments removes some of immune cells or boosts their numbers or changes them in a lab so they can find and kill cancer cells.
  1. Tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy. T cells -powerful white blood cells are removed. These are T cells that have started to attack tumor. They are grown as a large batch in lab called tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), and then put these activated fighters back into host body.
  2. Engineered T-cell receptor (TCR) therapy. removes T cells from and reprograms them in a lab so they can find the cancer more easily. 
  3. CAR T-cell therapy. adding special receptors to the surface of T cells allow locking onto cancer cell and destroy exact kind of cancer.  

Only two CAR T-cell therapies are FDA-approved:

Tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah) treats people up to age 25 with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and adults with certain types of large B-cell lymphoma.

Axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta) treats adults with some types of large B-cell lymphoma, such as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

  1. Natural killer (NK) cell therapy. Immune cells attack foreign invaders like cancer and adding both CARs to NK cells helps them target the cancer even better.
11 Oct
Uncategorized

How Does Immunotherapy Work Against Cancer?

Of various cancer types, the game-changer is immunotherapy also sometimes called biologic therapy.

Well! It is as simple as it could improve the life expectancy and extend the quality of life (QoL) longer than other treatments with a definitive increased disease-free survival time

Immunotherapy &/or biological therapy referred to that arm of treatment in the world of oncology that uses a host (patient’s) own immune system to treat cancer. 

Actually, by Immunotherapy, your healthcare professional is able to boost &/or change the pavement via which the immune system is working; this allows not only to find but also enables the attack to cancer cells.  

In lieu of this, if the designed treatment plan includes immunotherapy in your patient’s care plan, you need to be knowing how it works; since this is ultimately an umpteen way to unravel what to expect.

It can often help you and you are loved ones to get prepared for treatment before being handed making the process of informed decisions about patient care easier. 

Now, truly intimating the part of normal function that the immune system is exploiting to detect and destroy or stop the cancer cells from growing. For instance, immune cells in the surrounding regions of tumors i.e. found in and around tumors are called tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes or TILs.

They are a sign that the immune system is responding well to the tumor. And the patient’s reports with tumors containing ILs often do better than patients whose tumors don’t contain them.

Here, in addition to the above mechanism,  an ethical parameter is the immune system cells or substances that will slow cancer growth are the main key.

The cancer cells have their own notorious ways to avoid destruction by the immune system. And certain cancer cells survive even hidden for years in some cases without symptoms. For example, cancer cells have strong genetic changes, proteins on the surface, or release substances that turn off immune cells, or they have the capability to change the normal cells around the tumor. This interference with how the immune system responds to cancer is exploited in immunotherapy. 

This ensures that by boosting the immune system by means of Immunotherapy, we are helping the immune system to better act against cancer.

Talking about the Future of Immunotherapy as various researchers are trying to find ways to exploit the functioning of the host’s own immune system in the fight against cancer, are also trying to understand the advocacy behind the combined approach. In combined approach treatment immunotherapy with other treatments is proving to be efficacious and now the centre of focus is on results of the paired- two types of immunotherapy are done collectively.