WORLD CANCER DAY 2021: #IAmAndIWill - A LOOK AT 2020 FROM THE EYES OF CANCER....

 

Almost everyone reading my blog know very well that my all time favourite topic is cancer. Yes, and today, 4th February 2021, is World Cancer Day. This year's theme, being "I Am and I will" (#IAmAndIWill), whoever we are, our actions small and big - will make a lasting, optimistic effect. 

During a pandemic, giving scientific insights is very critical. The public is understandably eager to know as much scientific information as possible about COVID-19 prognosis, diagnosis, care and treatment and its impact on cancer care. 

Last year capped an incredible decade for cancer immunotherapy. Patients with several types of cancer can now receive FDA - approved immunotherapies. Despite this progress, more work remains to be done because many cancer patients still don't respond to immunotherapy. If we look at chemotherapy, surgery, etc, all of us do know about their potential side effects, harming the general health of the patient. So the need of the hour is not just a treatment which can save many lives but all the lives of those affected with cancer, and causes minimal to zero side effects. And having this mind, towards the end of 2019, I found a new treatment for cancer without side effects, and in April 2020, I published it in IJCRT journal. 

I had also posted the treatment earlier in this blog. Yes, every small or big move counts, as cancer is not a single disease, but a multitude of diseases. 

Last year saw the first approval for an immunotherapy for breast cancer, when the combination of PD-L1 checkpoint immunotherapy and chemotherapy was approved as a first-line treatment for patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. With respect to the notoriously difficult cancer for treatment, i.e., pancreatic cancer, a clinical trial revealed impressive preliminary results in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer who were treated with combination of PD-1 checkpoint, immunotherapy, chemotherapy and a novel immunotherapy targeting the CD40 pathway.

Prostrate cancer and brain cancer, especially in their extreme form, known as glioblastoma, are two other types of tumors that have proven resistant to checkpoint immunotherapy, atleast when it is used alone, not in combination with anything else. However, the adaptive design of a clinical trial allows promising combinations to be added in the future, may also serve as a model for future clinical trials, which are addressing other cancer types. 

Recent evidence appears to suggest that immune cells called myeloid cells may play an important role in patient responses. 

While much of the fruits of immunotherapy hanging low, have been picked up for the patients, the solutions for immunotherapy's unanswered challenges continue to remain unanswered as they require more intense investigation. 

Personally, I feel that we should have a sharper focus on how to manipulate the microbiome and specific microbes within the microbiome to drive the clinical benefit seen in immunotherapy agents. 

Do let me know your views and opinions in the comments !