What Is Targeted Therapy?

Targeted therapy is a type of cancer treatment that uses drugs to target specific proteins in a tumour and affect how cancer cells grow, divide and multiply. It is a type of precision cancer treatment that is personalised for each patient. 

Here are some ways how targeted therapy works:

• Enables the immune system to destroy cancer cells
• Prevents or stops cancer cells from growing
• Stops the signals needed to form new blood vessels 
• Kills cancer cells based on the presence of proteins on cancer cells
• Starves cancer cells of hormones that they need to grow

There are two types of targeted therapies:

• Small-molecule drugs: The drugs used are small enough to enter cells, and targets are inside the cell.
• Monoclonal antibodies: These are proteins produced in the lab designed to attach to particular target sites present on the cancer cells. While some monoclonal antibodies mark cells to enable the immune system to destroy them, others act directly on the cancer cells to either stop them from growing or kill them.

Targeted therapy is used along with other primary treatments in treating some cancers like melanoma and a few types of leukaemia.