L17-How do you know treatment is working? Flashcards
What are the requirements of a cancer for it to become noticable?
It must be at least 1 cm in size to show up on imaging. Other wise it must be large enough to interfere with the body and cause symptoms.
Why is early diagnosis required?
It is required because cancers present quite late on in their growth and therefore early diagnosis and treatment is required to provide the best curative possibilty.
What are the 6 main cancer treatments?
Chemotherapy-cytotoxic drugs that kill rapidly dividing cells.
Radiotherapy-high energy therapy that is used as local treatment for cancers
Surgery-to remove cancerous cells.
Immunotherapy- monoclonal antibodies
Hormone therapy- e.g. tamoxifen
Biological therapy-gene therapy
Why does a zigzag progression occur in terms of cell numbers with chemotherapy?
As chemotherapy is performed in cycles it causes dips and peaks when not on chemo to give bone marrow time to recover.
What does RECIST stand for and what is it used for?
It is used for assesing treatment efficacy. It stands for responce evaluation criteria in solid radical treatment.
Consists of:
-Complete response- disappearance of all signs of disease
-Partial response-a reduction in tumour size by at least 30%.
-Subtle disease-no change
-Disease progression-an increase in tumour size by at least 20% or mets.
What is overall suvival?
survival time from the start of treatment.
What is disease free survival?
It is survival time prior to tumour relapse after radical treatment.
What is progress free survival?
Survival time prior to tumour progression.
What is the best way to determine if a new treatment works or not?
Randomised controlled trials
What is the hazard ratio?
Hazard ratio=deaths at any time of new treatment/deaths at any time of current treatment
