New Cancer therapies extend lives for a pricier cost

New Cancer therapies extend lives for a pricier cost
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Many cancer treatments have been approved over the past years. In the last 5 years, 68 cancer treatments were approved and one of the most recent is MR-HIFU. However, the life expanding treatments come in very expensive ways.

Business Insider has published that from 2012 until now, 68 new cancer treatments were approved but with a very high cost. For those of you who are not familiar with how expensive cancer research and treatment is, only last year the global spending of people suffering from different cancer forms reached 113 billion dollars; a sum 6 billion dollars higher than 2015.

According to Murray Aitken, the executive director of Quintiles IMS Institute, there has been a boom in cancer innovating therapies. Only last year 20 % of the global spending was on cancer treatment.

Researchers from the Eindhoven University of Technology, Philips Research and University Hospital of Cologne have managed to develop a new cancer therapy by combining MRI Imaging with ultrasound (HIFU) and nanoparticles which as drug-loaded and temperature sensitive.

This treatment has been published in the scientific journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) and it has been named MR-HIFU. According to the researchers, the temperature-sensitive liposomes will transmit the medication through the body to the tumor location and their monitoring will the through the use of imaging.

According to Dr. Edqin Heijiman, Senior Research Scientist the Department of Oncology Solutions at Philip Research, the new treatment (MR-HIFU) has an unique technological feature which enables hyperthermia to locally release the drug, while at the same time using thermal ablation during the procedure.

So far, the treatment is still under development and the plan is to develop it further and apply it to cancer patients as soon as possible.


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Anna is an avid blogger with an educational background in medicine and mental health. She is a generalist with many other interests including nutrition, women's health, astronomy and photography. In her free time from work and writing, Anna enjoys nature walks, reading, and listening to jazz and classical music.

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