For decades, physicians and patients knew three classic treatments for cancer:
- Surgery
- Chemotherapy
- Radiation therapy
New times have come, and new therapies are available like:
- Immunotherapy
- Hormone therapy
- Gene therapy
- Targeted therapy
But the most novel and advanced cancer treatment is the nuclear-molecular targeted therapy with radioactive agents.
At ISOTOPIA we are enabling personalized medicine by providing radiopharmaceuticals for diagnostic imaging and targeted therapeutic agents for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
This is also known as “Theranostics”.
We are striving to offer the most innovative developments in the field of nuclear cancer treatment. Our team of nuclear specialists and the advanced technologies at our facilities are aimed to offer the most advanced cancer treatments.
What is Theranostics?
People are afraid of “radiation” and “radioactivity”. Yet, it is used in medical practice to treat cancer. But there are different ways to use it. Conventional radiotherapy treats various tumours by using high-energy X-rays to destroy cancer cells, but some harm is inflicted to normal cells around the tumour and sometimes the whole body. The side effects of radiotherapy are well known and are related to the unwanted damage sustained by surrounding tissues and organs.
Can these side effects be minimized? Yes! We deal with a new medical approach which combines specific targeted therapy based on specific targeted diagnostic tests. What does this medical strategy mean? each cancer cell exhibits various types of chemical molecules some of them are overexpressed in comparison to normal cell and some of these molecules are alien to our body. In any case they can be targeted by a specific molecule that is deadly to the cancer cells when it binds to it. Using specific targeted therapy only the cancer cells are destroyed and minimal or no healthy human tissue is damaged.
Cancer cells may vary from human being to human being. It means that the treatment must be personalized and precise for each patient. Theranostics uses nanoscience to unite diagnostic and treatment applications to produce a specific treatment agent suitable for diagnosis and specific type of cellular cancer molecules. It means that instead of targeting the whole organ, drug delivery will be more specific to destroy the cancer cells.
Therefore, a therapeutic dose of radiation targets not the whole organ, healthy tissue and tumor tissue alike, but only particular molecules on the tumor cells. The therapeutic impact is significant, side effects are minimized. The trial and error medicine approach are to be avoided.
The novel approach, is based on the following principles:
- Select the right patient
- Understand a patient’s genetic profile
- Choose the right treatment
- Calculate the right dosage
- Choose the right time
- Choose the specific target
- Design efficient and precise radioligand therapy
Theranostics play a significant role in the image guided drug delivery treatments. New molecular diagnostic tests permit to find the precise cancer cell molecules to be damaged (the target).
But theranostics is a term that unites the words diagnosis and therapy. It was invented to define efforts in clinics to develop specific, individualized therapies, and to combine diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities into a single medical element. The old motto “we should not treat the disease; we should treat the patient” gained new meaning now. It means individual treatment by targeting therapy and optimization of treatment efficacy and safety. For cancers this becomes important as it is now possible to direct potent cytotoxic drugs to act only in tumors.
The phenomenon of selective accumulation of nanosized treatment agents near tumor tissues gave new hope to numerous patients who were unable to receive adequate treatment in the past.
