A review of current and future prospects in cancer prevention and chemotherapy

Abstract

The worldwide burden of non-communicable diseases, including cancers, continues to increase. There has been an increasing pace of research and progress globally in the development of treatments, cures and preventive strategies against cancers. The modalities employed include chemotherapy, radiotherapy, immunotherapy, hormonal agents and dietary interventions. This update and review will discuss these modalities, their mode of action, safety and efficacy, as well as strategies to reduce toxicities arising from their use, such as personalized immuno-targeting. Optimizing immune functionality by addressing the gene - environment interaction will become an important preventive strategy. This review is based on references from online searches conducted on the following databases: Google Scholar, PubMed, Biomed Central and SciELO, using “cancer chemotherapy” as keywords.