Every year, millions of people around the world win the battle against cancer. Every day, modern medicine learns more about cancer.One of the main goals in this field is to focus treatment only on the area of cancer cell spread, instead of affecting the whole body. In this way, the side effects of treatment are minimized.
Specialists from Medical Park, Turkey's most widely spread hospital chain with 25 hospitals in 17 cities, tell about some of the most promising methods in cancer treatment.
Turkey's first private oncology hospital
It was the Medical Park Hospital Group that opened the first private cancer clinic in Turkey years ago, for which our southern neighbour is so famous today. Today, Medical Park reports that it is able to provide first-class diagnosis and treatment for cancer patients. Over 8300 patients have undergone treatment with the Gamma Knife radiosurgery device alone. State-of-the-art methods such as immunotherapy, tomotherapy, etc. are also applied.
3 new methods of cancer treatment in Medical Park Istanbul
Immunotherapy
Immunotherapy is one of the most intelligent methods of fighting cancer cells.It is a treatment method in which the immune system is used to fight various diseases and cancer in particular, explains Prof. Dr. Andaç Argon, a specialist in medical oncology at Medical Park Gyoztepe Hospital. For various reasons, in the presence of cancer, the immune system may not fully perform its functions. For example, a cancer cell forms in the body over a period of time, and at first the immune system may not perceive it as a foreign body.Or when cancer cells invade beyond the capacity of the immune system, it may refuse. Or the immune system may fight the cancer cells, but the fight may not be effective enough. In addition, cancer cells can secrete various substances and thus block the immune system. Through immunotherapy, the immune system is activated to fight cancer.
Intervention through a point on the skin
Concurrent with the rapid development of imaging technologies, interventional oncology has become one of the main methods of cancer treatment, says Hakan Artash, MD, PhD, a specialist in interventional radiology at Medical Park Hospital. Certain tumours found in the liver, lungs, kidneys or bones can be removed in a minimally invasive way through procedures such as "scalding" with radiofrequency and microwave ablation, and "freezing" with cryoablation.
Interventional treatments for cancer patients allow for the non-surgical, comfortable and effective treatment of certain cancers or are adjunctive treatments to other modalities such as surgery or chemotherapy. Interventional cancer treatments are performed at the same time as imaging procedures such as angiography, CT scans or ultrasound. The intervention is performed by inserting a needle through the skin. After the procedure, the patient remains under observation for several hours, after which he or she may be discharged. The goals of interventional oncology are to provide a cure for the disease, a bridge to surgery, a palliative anti-cancer treatment, and to treat the symptoms of cancer.
Tomotherapy
Associate Professor Dr. Berrin Pehlivan, a radiation oncology specialist at Medical Park Bachelievler Hospital, identifies the tomotherapy method as the only radiotherapy system that is designed based on computed tomography. A single system incorporating three-dimensional imaging and three-dimensional treatment can cover all treatment procedures from start to finish.
Traditional radiotherapy machines emit a wide beam of radiation from only a few angles. And with tomotherapy treatment technology, radiation therapy is delivered in the intended dose, with treatment beams optimized from all angles. Instead of a single radiation beam, tomotherapy technology divides a single beam into thousands of small and narrow "bundles." Each bundle can apply a different treatment dose. In this way, different doses are targeted to different parts of the tumor, providing maximum protection to surrounding healthy tissue.
According to Prof. Dr. Berrin Pehlivan, the new TomoDirect method opens up new possibilities in the fight against cancer. In addition to the 360-degree irradiation device in tomotherapy, which performs continuous rotational movements around the patient and the tumor, the TomoDirect method also uses stationary radiation beams to more precisely irradiate some more typical tumors.
