World Cancer Day: There are no hopeless patients

When the count goes on for months and even weeks

Now there is a technique for examining the gastrointestinal tract, developed by Russian and Japanese scientists, with which one can detect cancer cells even during gastroscopy. And the traumatic biopsy procedure will essentially only be required in terms of accepted protocols.

At a very early stage, doctors can not only detect tumor cells and understand their location, but even determine their type. In this study, the procedure is painless for the patient. Without exaggeration, we can say that in this sense Russia is ahead of Europe.

But for other complex diseases, diagnosis without a biopsy is not everything, says the deputy. General Director for Science, Ph.D. Petr Viktorovich Shegai. Cancer is a complex disease and its diagnosis often requires the use of different techniques. Fortunately, today they are also in service with oncologists. In particular, molecular genetic research is already widely used in the practice of oncology institutions. As a result, it became possible to create molecular genetic passports of tumors of specific patients with their individual data and personalized treatment options.

Today, special attention is paid to advanced forms of cancer: stages 3 and 4. Such patients were considered hopeless until recently. And the oncologists just shrugged: it’s too late! But, fortunately, today doctors are finding ways to save them. Doctors are armed with such a “cunning” cyber knife, with the help of which surgeons can remove malignant tumors in such vital places as the head and neck. Moreover, without any incisions, only with a thin x-ray beam. This does not require anesthesia.

As experts explained, in fact, a cyber-knife in oncology is a robotic radiosurgical system, and it is intended for the treatment of benign and malignant tumors of any location, including those that are difficult to reach. The method is non-invasive – an alternative to surgical treatment. High doses of radiation are targeted directly to the tumor, which significantly reduces the risk of radiation damage to healthy tissue.

Radiation therapy, as a rule, is part of the complex treatment of malignant tumors,” said the head. Department of Radiation Therapy of the Institute and chief radiologist of the Ministry of Health of Russia Evgeny Vitalievich Khmelevsky. — First of all, the technique is intended for local irradiation of small tumors with focused beams. Excellent results are obtained with a minimum of damage to healthy tissue.

One of the latest and very effective developments of Russian scientists and doctors is intra-abdominal aerosol chemotherapy under pressure. It is intended for the treatment of peritoneal carcinomatosis, one of the most dangerous variants of the progression of a number of oncological diseases with metastases, when tumor cells spread throughout the abdominal or pleural cavity and form small nodules on it, doctors explained.

In fact, we are talking about patients with stage 4 cancer, when the possibilities of medicine are almost exhausted, and life counts for months and even weeks. The method makes it possible to increase the life expectancy of such patients several times. Moreover, our specialists invented and patented a unique nozzle – a device for dispersing medications under pressure throughout the peritoneum affected by tumors, which is an import substitution for components that we previously received from abroad.

Little Bogdan will live

It would seem that children and urological diseases3 more and more children are being born with problems “below the belt”. At the Research Institute of Urology and Interventional Radiology named after. ON THE. Lopatkina (another branch of the National Medical Research Center of Radiology), the only center for pediatric complex urology in our country has been created and is currently operating. The head of the children’s uroandrology department, Ph.D., spoke about the specifics of treating small patients with major problems. Dmitry Vitalievich Marukhnenko: “Without exaggeration, problems of the genitourinary system are one of the most complex areas of childhood pathologies. Today, doctors provide all types of medical care to children with such diseases and use the most modern medical technologies.”

And he allowed me to talk with a little patient (5 years old) and his mother Svetlana, who came to Moscow from Transnistria for salvation. “My son’s problems appeared immediately after birth: he had an unformed bladder, one kidney was missing, there was no navel,” Bogdan’s mother Svetlana said with tears in her eyes. “Our doctors said that they have no experience in treating patients with this pathology. And the head doctor of the local clinic advised me to take my son to the Urology Research Institute. And here they gave us hope…

The boy has a very rare pathology – bladder exstrophy, congenital absence of the anterior wall of the bladder and a section of the anterior abdominal wall,” explained Dmitry Vitalievich Marukhnenko. “After the consultation, we developed a treatment plan. He underwent a rare operation in which doctors reshaped his pelvic bones and restored missing bladder structures. But this is only the first and most difficult stage of the operation; it includes the work of urological surgeons and traumatologists.

And now for the first two months the child will be in a plaster cast so that the pelvic bones grow together correctly. In 8-10 months, plastic surgery of the boy’s penis will also be performed. But that’s not all. If necessary, other corrective surgeries will be performed as the child grows. Let’s hope that the results will be successful and the boy will do what he dreams of today.

To be fair, it must be said. That such operations are carried out extremely rarely both in Russia and in the world.

In the meantime, Bogdan lies in the ward and does not lose heart at all. With a smile he talks about his lofty plans for life. Like all boys of his age, he dreams of high things: “I would like to take a walk in space,” he said. “And also become a tank driver and a policeman.” And, of course, “to quickly return home and see my older brother and friend from kindergarten.” These are the problems that worry the five-year-old patient now, and not the disease at all…

Operating doctor – head. Department of Endourology, Doctor of Medical Sciences Dmitry Stanislavovich Merinov noted: “The most complex tumors in the renal pelvis, ureter, and in patients with a single kidney are also removed endoscopically. In fact, this is a unique operation when we can cope with the tumor without removing the organ.”

Prostate cancer is also treated using a minimally invasive method. Its insidiousness is that at an early stage it does not manifest itself in any way. And in advanced cases, the tumor metastasizes. You need to know that today prostate cancer is the second most common cancer among men. Therefore, already in middle age, they need to regularly visit a urologist and take a PSA test, advise specialists from the Research Institute of Urology.

But why today are we seeing such a significant increase in urological pathologies in children? I asked the chief freelance specialist of the Russian Ministry of Health on male reproductive health and the director of the Research Institute of Urology and Interventional Radiology named after. ON THE. Lopatkin, core member of the RAS Oleg Ivanovich Apolikhin.

There are very important demographic aspects associated with pathologies in people of reproductive age,” explained Oleg Ivanovich. “For example, the incidence of cancer is increasing in young women of reproductive age, up to 45 years old, who have not even been married yet. This is often due to an unhealthy lifestyle. Alcohol, smoking, physical inactivity, obesity, promiscuity… Plus a bad environment. As a result, most women and men are already unhealthy before starting a family.

And cancers often attack the human genitourinary system. Suffice it to say that prostate cancer is in second place among all cancers in men, and cervical cancer is in fourth place in terms of prevalence in women.

Oleg Ivanovich also emphasized that today urolithiasis in children has become a new scourge of civilization – again due to the incorrect lifestyle of both parents and their children. Some children are even born with kidney stones.

Saving a person from cancer is in the living cell of the person himself

As the head of the laboratory, Denis Stanislavovich Baranovsky, said, new technologies make it possible to take the required number of patient cells and “grow” living tissue from them outside his body. At the same time, some cells are immediately printed on a bioprinter, while others must still go through the stage of “maturation and growth” in special incubators and bioreactors.

“Normally, T-lymphocytes are responsible for human antitumor immunity,” explained Baranovsky. “But malignant tumors learn to defend themselves against T-cell immunity. And this fully applies to oncohematological diseases. By changing part of the DNA and producing a “chimeric” receptor, we help the body recognize the malignant cell and destroy it.” Despite the fact that the procedure for introducing the drug into the body of a cancer patient is one-time, the drug remains in the human bone marrow for a long time, due to which complete remission is achieved.

According to experts, the complex of cellular technologies is unique in our country, where they produce medicinal products based on cellular technologies for the treatment of cancer.

It has already been proven that drug treatment for cancer has a negative impact on the fertile functions of the human reproductive system, up to their loss. But now a program for preserving reproductive function in patients who have undergone chemotherapy and radiation treatment is being actively used.

A method of cryopreservation of biological material, which is stored in a cryobank created specifically for this purpose. There are also the latest equipment for embryo selection. As a result, cancer patients can become parents even after completing the course of treatment.

And yet it’s too early to relax: today in Russia there are about 4 million people affected by cancer under dispensary registration, and another 350-400 thousand new cases are added every year.