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Precision medicine: one of the possible cancer treatments
Dr. Macedo revealed that the “traditional” view of treatment against Cancer is to serve patients with the same therapy, but that could have several scenarios:
“Some will have an effect, others will have no effect and some others will have a level of toxicity,” explained the specialist, who stressed that the treatments do not always work.
“The same treatment for each group of diseases is not the best option, since patients may respond differently to the same medicine: antidepressants and asthma medications, for example, have a 38% probability of failure, Diabetes drugs have a 43% probability of failure, arthritis drugs 50%, Alzheimer’s 70% and Cancer 75% “, explained Dr. Macedo in his presentation.
Under this scheme, Macedo mentioned that precision medicine is more exact in that sense, since from the same treatment for all, a stratification is made where people are grouped by disease, subtypes, demography, clinical aspects and biomarkers; Then there is precision medicine, where a personalization of an individual patient is made and their preferences, clinical aspects, medication history, environment, behaviors and habits and biomarkers are evaluated, making “precision medicine” just that, precise treatment.
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Photo: webinar screenshot “Precision medicine and Cancer“
For personalized medicine, molecular tests are performed on patients with Cancer And with this, it is determined which treatment goes for each person, which results in higher levels of effect, compared to the traditional approach.
“The traditional approach is no longer recommended. The personalized approach is better. An adequate biopsy allows adequate treatment. The process is that the patient arrives with the doctor, studies are done, a sample of the tumor tissue is taken (biopsy) and This is sent for revision to pathology where the tumor is named, hence the specific molecular tests are requested, these molecular tests are performed with RT-PCR (reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction) or a sequencing of the following generation and the result of molecular tests is given, “explains Macedo.
What are the advantages of this treatment? Dr. Macedo points out that with white therapies, compared to chemotherapy, people have a high percentage of response, being 60-80% with the former versus 20-30% of chemotherapies.
“There are faster responses too: in two weeks you start to see results, compared to chemotherapy, where they are seen in six weeks, in addition there are few adverse effects, there is brain protection against metastasis and therefore better survival” , indicated the doctor.
“Do not stay with the doubt. We are in a good time for oncology and patients should be empowered and ask all the questions they have. There are already different ways of treating them, not just the traditional approach,” concluded the expert on these possible cancer treatments.
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