Is targeted cancer therapy more effective than traditional chemo or other cancer
treatments?

There are cancer types where chemotherapy works exceptionally well, to the point of
curing very advanced stage disease, such as testicular.

Other cancers are treated effectively with combinations of chemotherapy and targeted
therapy, such as aggressive histology B cell lymphomas using Rituxan which targets
CD20 with CHOP chemotherapy and HER2 positive breast cancer using Herceptin which
targets HER2 with chemotherapy.

And then there are cancers that are treated with combinations of immunotherapy checkpoint inhibitors with chemotherapy such as advanced stage lung cancer.

Other cancers are only treated with targeted therapy such as EGFR lung cancer with
Tagrisso, any cancer with an NTRK fusion.
Kidney (renal cell) cancers never are given chemotherapy and combinations of VEGF
tyrosine kinase inhibitors with checkpoint immunotherapy are used.
Melanomas are treated with checkpoint immunotherapy or BRAF targeted treatments in
certain subgroups.

There are increasing subtypes of cancer which are treated uniquely based on molecular
signatures.

One of the fasting growing therapies in cancer treatment are antibody drug conjugates,
where an antibody linked to chemotherapy targets an antigen on cancer cells and then
delinks the chemotherapy in a smart bomb kind of way.
This reduces the side effects of the chemotherapy because it's delivered more accurately
and also the effectiveness but increasing the concentration of chemotherapy at the
target.
Examples including Enhertu for HER2 positive and HER2 low cancers of all types, and
Trodelvy which targets a pan cancer antigen TROP2.

More info... https://www.quora.com/Is-targeted-cancer-therapy-more-effective-than-traditional-
chemo-or-other-cancer-treatments

--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v7.0
* Origin: The Hobby Line! BBS (999:1/1)