As is well known, a singular treatment is not enough to eradicate cancer from the body. The older approach to treating cancer is with the use of chemotherapy, a nonspecific cytotoxic chemical, while the newer approach is to treat cancer with targeted and immunotherapy treatments which have the capability of specificity (Vanneman, Mathew, et al.). Chemotherapy kills all cells that produce rapidly, it is narrow spectrum, highly toxic, and resistance is known to occur quite frequently (Vanneman, Mathew, et al.). Because chemotherapy kills all highly prolific cells, this means that healthy cells are killed along with the cancerous cells. Chemotherapy, along with other conventional therapy methods, attack tumors and cancerous cells directly, while targeted therapy and immunotherapy do so indirectly (Rangel-Sosa, Martha, et al.). Targeted therapy blocks molecular pathways responsible for tumor growth and stability, and immunotherapy elicits an immune response and creates long term destruction of tumor cells (Vanneman, Mathew, et al.). One specific pathway targeted therapy block is oncogene addiction, which is a process by which a single mutated gene or signaling pathway drives tumor proliferation (Vanneman, Mathew, et al.). Targeted therapy also inhibits critical biochemical pathways and mutated proteins that stimulate tumor development, growth, and survivals; drugs
have been used and prohibited disease development and increased regression in some cases (Vanneman, Mathew, et al.). In most cases, targeted therapy remission results are not permanent, just like with traditional chemotherapy. Since targeted therapy arrests tumor development and decreases a tumors suppression of the immune system, this provides an opportunity to utilize immunotherapy as well to create a greater cytotoxic effect against cancer cells. Combining treatment methods has been found to be helpful due to the diverseness of cancers, acquired resistance to medications, and the importance of individualized therapy. Combination is most efficient when each treatment is researched on how they interact with the immune system and what phase they begin working. Immunotherapy agents, radiation and chemotherapy dosage/type/duration, and any other therapeutic agents must work in synergy with each other and induce cohesive effects that play off of one another. For example, a combine therapy could include a suicide gene releasing tumor associated antigens that then recruit antigen presenting cells and T-regulatory cells. An immune checkpoint inhibitor could then suppress the T-regulatory cell activity and increase T-cell production. The T-cells produced and activated could then fight the tumor and create immune memory that would produce long-term tumor-lytic effects.