In this first paragraph, what is systemic therapy for cancer? There are numerous ways to treat breast cancer. Medicines that are taken orally or through a vein, as a drip into a vein, are also frequently used to treat breast cancer in addition to radiation therapy and surgery to remove malignant tissue.

Systemic treatments are another name for medications used to treat cancer. Chemotherapy, hormone therapy, targeted medication therapy, and immunotherapy are some of the systemic treatment options for breast cancer.

Systemic therapy aims to either stop the growth of cancer cells or eliminate them from the body, according to medical oncologists Matthew Goetz, M.D., of the Mayo Clinic. In addition, Dr. Goetz is the main investigator of the Mayo Clinic Breast Cancer SPORE and the deputy director of translational research at the Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center.

What Is Systemic Therapy for Cancer?

Systemic cancer therapy means that it is directed against cancer cells across the entire body in contrast to localized therapies. This would include chemotherapy, targeted therapy, immunotherapy, and hormone therapy, which all fight against cancer but in different ways.

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Chemotherapy uses cytotoxic drugs to kill any rapidly dividing cells, including the bad, while targeted therapies target specific molecular defects in cancer cells to shut them down; immunotherapy ramps up the immune system so that the body can recognize and destroy cancer.

While hormone therapy works by blocking hormones in some cancers like breast and prostate. The intent of most systemic therapy is to combine them with either surgery or radiation for the betterment of treatment and hence minimize recurrence, so offering hope for those patients whose cancers are both localized and metastatic.

4 Type of Systemic Therapy for Cancer

1: Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy, a chemical that is typically administered intravenously, is the breast cancer medication treatment that most people think of, according to Dr. Goetz.

Chemotherapy can either completely eradicate the cancer or significantly reduce the overall number of cancer cells in the body, depending on the circumstances and the type of cancer. The probability of recurrence can be decreased by using chemotherapy and medication therapies, which are also efficient at killing cancer cells that are not yet active.

According to Dr. Goetz, there is a possibility that there may be cancer cells that are not found when a woman is initially diagnosed with breast cancer and she does not exhibit any overt signs of the disease spreading throughout her body. In this blog, what is a systemic therapy for cancer?

Chemotherapy is frequently used in conjunction with other medical interventions, including hormone therapy, radiation therapy, or surgery. Your doctor may suggest chemotherapy before or after surgery to reduce an existing tumor or eliminate cancer cells that are still present but have not yet been discovered throughout the body. It is the term for this kind of therapy.

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Uncomfortable side effects from chemotherapy include nausea, vomiting, hair loss, and appetite loss. It's crucial to talk to your healthcare practitioner about these side effects and consider the many medication alternatives for your cancer diagnosis, even though they may frequently be avoided and even improved when treatment is over.

Some women might not be good candidates for these drugs. "We definitely come across that," Dr. Goetz says. The good thing is that we have a number of different drugs, so we can try another one if a lady can't take one. Having a variety of options is crucial for our patients since we are aware that no single medication works for everyone.

2: Hormone Therapy

Hormone therapy like progesterone and estrogen can promote certain forms of breast cancer. To find out if this is the case for your cancer kind, your healthcare professional can order testing. Hormone therapy may be suggested if it is.

According to Dr. Goetz, estrogen-receptor-positive, or hormone-receptor-positive, breast cancer is the most prevalent kind, making up roughly 70% of all breast cancers. We know that cancer cells react to estrogen or other hormones and use them to develop or multiply in this kind of cancer. The treatment of hormones involves the use of medications to either block, eliminate, or significantly downregulate the estrogen receptor.

Clinical trials have been carried out to ascertain whether hormone therapy can be utilized as a preventative measure for women who are at high risk for breast cancer because of the high prevalence of hormone-sensitive breast cancer. According to Dr. Goetz, these drugs have been used in people who are at a high risk of getting breast cancer, and they work quite well in those situations.

3: Targeted Drug Therapy

Targeted medication therapy functions all over the body, much like chemotherapy, and is particularly useful for tumors that have spread. However, the way that targeted medication therapy destroys cancer cells is different from that of chemotherapy. According to the National Cancer Institute, targeted-drug therapies target the anomalies in cancer cells, especially proteins, that enable them to proliferate and survive.

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The proliferation of cancer cells is aided by proteins like HER2, or human epidermal growth factor receptor 2. Cancerous tumors may be more aggressive in patients with HER2-positive malignancy. About 20% of breast cancers have HER2, according to Dr. Goetz.

Patients used to be afraid of HER2-positive breast cancer. According to Dr. Goetz, we had patients with incurable HER2-positive breast cancer when I first began my studies at the Mayo Clinic.

Numerous novel medications have been created in the last 20 years that have lowered the incidence of HER2-positive breast cancer by 70% to 80%. We can now say, "Well, this is a good thing because we have very active drugs that can work to help with this." Your healthcare provider can identify the most effective targeted medications for your cancer kind by analyzing the abnormalities of cancer cells.

4: Immunotherapy

Although the immune system is designed to defend against perceived dangers, cancer cells have the ability to control the immune system by disabling the fight response mechanism, which permits cancer cells to proliferate. A more recent type of tailored medication called immunotherapy trains your immune system to recognize and eliminate cancer cells.

Immunotherapy is now authorized for individuals with triple-negative breast cancer that has spread locally. Basal-like breast cancer, another name for triple-negative breast cancer, is not responsive to the HER2 protein or hormones.

Chemotherapy has been the standard treatment for women with triple-negative breast cancer. However, immunotherapy is one of the true success stories in treating triple-negative breast cancer, according to Dr. Goetz.

People of color are more likely to get triple-negative breast cancer. African American women are far more likely than Caucasian women to develop this kind of breast cancer, according to Dr. Goetz. Currently, there is a lot of study being done in this field.

The Mayo Clinic's cancer specialists are still investigating the potential of immunotherapy and other medications, both new and old, to combat breast cancer in various populations. "We must be able to customize our care," Dr. Goetz explains. 'It's about the right drug, at the correct amount, for the right patient,' as my mentor Dr. Richard Weinshilboum puts it. We must concentrate on that.