40,000 oncologists from all over the world meet each year in Chicago at the ASCO congress to discuss the latest research results in cancer detection and cancer therapy. So that the scientific findings also reach all of Austria’s hospitals, experts at the invitation of the Austrian Society for Hematology & Medical Oncology (OeGHO) spoke yesterday in the Promenaden Galerien in Linz about the effects of the findings on survival chances and therapies for different types of cancer.
Less chemo: “Chemotherapy is losing ground, individual, targeted therapies are bringing better and better results,” says Ewald Wöll, Medical Director of the Zams Hospital.
New drugs: A number of innovative drugs open up new therapy options. For example, administration of the antibody zolbetuximab was able to significantly increase overall survival in patients with gastric cancer.
Biomarkers, i.e. molecules that help to better characterize a disease, enable even more targeted therapies. “Biomarkers are increasingly helping to make the choice of medication, regardless of the organ of origin in which the cancer occurred,” says oncologist Armin Gerger.
Therapy alternatives: It doesn’t always have to be the full program. In a study on rectal cancer, for example, it could be demonstrated that surgery and chemotherapy achieved a comparable treatment success and a similar survival rate to the additional completion of radio-chemotherapy. “This has a particular impact on younger patients who would otherwise experience menopause earlier as a result of radiation therapy and who want to preserve their fertility,” says haemato-oncologist Angela Djanani.
Blood collection: With a simple blood collection, circulating tumor DNA can be analyzed and a profile of the tumor can be created and therapies can be used in a targeted manner.
Immunotherapy before surgery has “resulted in an impressive increase in overall survival” for lung cancer, says pulmonologist Maximilian Hochmair. In addition, “the pathologist calls more and more often and says the tumor is gone, there is nothing left to find,” he says.
Simpler surgeries: In the case of cervical cancer, it has until now been common practice to remove the uterus, its suspensory system and part of the vagina during surgery. Studies have shown that less radical surgical methods result in the same treatment success and at the same time a higher quality of life for those affected.
Artificial intelligence: The results are particularly promising when it comes to detecting common types of cancer such as prostate or breast cancer. “Artificial intelligence will soon change our life in pathology seriously,” predicts pathologist Robert Jäger.
ePaper
Read e-paper now!
Read the daily updated ePaper edition of the OÖNachrichten – now flip through it digitally!
to the epaper
author
Julia Evers
Editor culinary, life and health
Julia Evers
info By clicking on the icon you add the keyword to your topics.
info Click on the icon to open your “my topics” page. You have saved from 15 tags and need to remove tags.
info Click on the icon to remove the keyword from your topics.
Add the theme to your themes.