HJAR Mar/Apr 2024

52 MAR / APR 2024 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS DIALOGUE COLUMN ONCOLOGY THERE ARE hundreds of cancers and as many variations as there are patients. One person’s lung cancer is not like another lung cancer, and every patient comes with their own unique genetic makeup, medical history, environmental factors, lifestyle, and more. Fortunately, over the last 30 years, two areas in particular have shown significant advancement in the treatment of cancer: tar- geted therapy and immunotherapy. Targeted therapy was made possible by the — including breast, lung, colon, liver, and kid- ney — with new advancements making even greater insights possible every day. The rise of immunotherapy The second major advancement in recent years, and one we’ll focus on here, is immu- notherapy. With this treatment, antibodies are used to activate the immune system, enabling it to identify and destroy rogue cells while also recruiting additional reinforcements to Cancer is the most common human genetic disease. Yet, in a practical sense, that commonality is a myth. A Cancer Treatment that Takes the Brakes Off of the Immune System Human Genome Project — a detailed draft and analysis of the human genome — which was first published in 2001 and has now been refined and expanded upon many times over. Which is why, more than 20 years later, we can precisely identify certain types of cancer cells and develop drugs that focus on specific mutations and processes that drive cancer growth. We’ve already seen exciting results us- ing targeted therapy in treating cancers