British media said that British scientists have accurately found the only Achilles heel of cancer, and that mankind has the hope of setting off a revolution in treatment methods - and even hope of curing cancer.
According to a report on the British "Daily Mail" website on March 4, in the future, this customized therapy can hunt down every cancer cell in a patient, no matter where they are hidden.
Within two years at the earliest, the first batch of patients can receive this treatment. In the end, every cancer patient from early to late stage may benefit from it.
Cancer Research UK provided funding for this landmark study. A spokesperson for the research institute said that if it lives up to expectations, "this may be a revolutionary way to treat or even cure cancer."
Despite the continuous advancement of medicine, cancer takes the lives of millions of patients every year-and even the so-called "magic bullet" can only extend the lives of patients by an average of a few weeks.
This research led by experts from University College London touched the core of the problem that existing treatments are often limited in effectiveness.
Although we think that a tumor is a mass formed by the same cells, it will continue to grow and mutate over time.
The existing drugs generally only target one type of cell. If the cancer changes too much, the drugs that seem to be useful will no longer work.
Even though the drug seems to have eliminated the cancer, some highly mutated cells may be in a latent state and the disease will recur.
Some drug-resistant mutations can be found on every cancer cell in the tumor, and researchers at University College London have found a way to identify them.
They also proved that some lung cancer patients have disease-resistant white blood cells, which can completely fight against those common mutations. In the future, such white blood cells can be collected from patients, cultured in the laboratory, and then returned to their bodies to eliminate cancer. In theory, they can kill every cancer cell.
Another option is to use information about mutations to produce a vaccine-using this drug to direct the immune system to fight cancer.
This method may be particularly useful for lung cancer and skin cancer. But people hope that patients with other types of cancer, including breast cancer and prostate cancer, will also benefit.
This kind of therapy can not only be used to treat cancer at any stage, but it may be particularly useful for cancer patients who have reached the advanced stage and have no other choice.
Professor Charles Swanton, one of the authors of the research report, said: "This brings hope that we may be able to reverse advanced cancer."
Some immunotherapies—that is, the use of the immune system and white blood cells to fight cancer—have come out and have produced amazing results.
In some cases, patients are thought to only live for a few months, but they return to work after receiving immunotherapy and resume their normal lives.
However, although immunotherapy is promising, it does not work for everyone. Professor Swanton said: "We think this method is very important for the treatment of cancer. In a few years, our use of immunotherapy to treat cancer will be as common as today's chemotherapy." However, he cautioned that this research is still in its early stages. Stage, has not been used to treat cancer patients.