Cancer Tests and New Treatment Methods.

      Cancer is responsible for the deaths of millions of people around the world every year.  It can attack virtually any organ in the body from the skin to the lungs to the brain, and it can spread throughout the body and infect other organs and body systems.  The causes or risk factors for cancer can also vary to a high degree, with the leading agents that either cause cancer or make it more likely being carcinogenic chemicals, certain lifestyles or diets, genetic defects, and infections.  When a doctor wants to screen for cancer, they have a variety of tests at their disposal and, like most other medical diagnoses, they usually employ many of these tests to determine if a patient has cancer, what stage the cancer is at, and what kind of cancer it is.  The most commonly used tests include blood work, various imaging techniques such as CT scans or MRIs, and biopsies.  Treatment options usually include surgery to remove the tumor, chemotherapy, and anti-cancer drugs.  Recent developments in tumor-targeting methods provide much hope for treatment options that do not have many - if any - side effects.  Both tests and treatment almost always involve blood work or tests of some sort, meaning that med techs are involved in all stages for most cancer patients.

       Blood tests are used in a wide variety of cancer-related situations.  They play a role in diagnosing if someone has cancer, they help to determine what kind of cancer is present, and, during many types of treatment, particularly chemotherapy, they are critically important in ensuring that an excessive dose of radiation (or of a drug) is not administered to a patient and that the patient's overall health is acceptable.  Complete blood counts are performed to measure the strength of a patient's immune system; this test qualifies and quantifies the cells in a person's blood, with particular clinical importance found in the counts of various white blood cells due to their immunological function.  Electrophoresis tests can be run to determine if unusual or incorrectly-formed immunoglobulins are present as these can be an indication that a person has particular forms of cancer.  Tumor marker tests can also be performed to detect the levels of certain proteins (or other compounds) that are related to the presence of certain types of cancer.  They are most commonly used to check for prostate and ovarian cancers, although many other tests exist that check for other types of cancer.  However, the value of tumor marker tests is limited by the fact that some of these compounds are produced by healthy cells.  This means that elevated levels of these markers is not a definitive sign of cancer; rather it should be viewed as a sign that further tests are likely needed to determine the cause of the increased concentration of these markers (Source).  Blood tests are also done to monitor the levels of specific drugs.  These tests are often time-specifc, meaning that the draw has to be done within a small time range in order to measure the levels of the drug a set amount of time after the last dose.  Medical technologists play an important role in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients.

Tumor cells shown as red, IF7 as
green; 20 min after administration
Source 

      Recently, a group of researchers from the Sanford Burnham Medical Research Institute developed a treatment method that is capable of targeting colon cancer cells and reaching the tumor site very quickly.  This technique couples an anti-cancer drug with the small protein IF7, a lectin that specifically and tightly binds to a specific carbohydrate called annexin 1 that is predominantly found in the blood vessels that feed tumors.  When injected into a patient, IF7 is attracted to annexin 1, which brings the drug directly to the tumor very quickly.  In studies with mice, this technique was able to drastically shrink and eventually cure even terminal tumors without any noticeable side effects.  This was likely due to the fact that much lower doses of the drug were used in treatment; as little as one-seventh of a regular dose was needed to be effective.  Since the drug is delivered directly to the tumor, only a dose large enough to kill the tumor is needed, whereas when the drug is administered without IF7, a higher dose has to be given so that the normal circulation of blood will bring enough of the drug to the tumor to kill it. The researchers are hopeful that this technique can be applied to a wide variety of tumors.  In fact, the only modification needed to treat a tumor that displays high levels of annexin 1 (fortunately, that is not an uncommon characteristic) would be changing which drug was attached to IF7.  Clearly, this avenue of study is very interesting and holds great promise for treating a wide variety of cancers.