When it comes to treating cancer, there are several ways to go about it, such as chemotherapy where the body is basically blasted with poison in an attempt to kill off cancerous cells. The downside is that there is a lot of collateral damage as a result. The next alternative is immunotherapy, where the patient’s immune system gets a boost to try and fight off the cancerous cells.
However, there are some forms of cancer that resist these types of treatment, such as Triple-Negative Breast Cancer, but thanks to the work of researchers at Harvard’s Wyss Institute, they claim to have developed a specially-formulated drug cocktail that they believe can work with Triple-Negative Breast Cancer, and possibly other more aggressive forms of cancer in a cheaper and more efficient manner.
This cocktail combines both chemotherapy and immunotherapy along with an addition of synthetic DNA strands that helps weeds out cancerous cells that might be hiding, thus potentially preventing relapses. Initial tests done on mice found that their cocktail boosted immune response by about 8%, and that all the mice who were infected survived and there were no relapses.
It is still very early in the testing phases so don’t expect it to be made available to the general public anytime soon, but it’s a good sign nonetheless.
Filed in . Read more about Health and Science. Source: engadget