Molecularly targeted therapy/ targeted therapy

A type of treatment that targets specific molecules that cancer cells need to survive and spread.

Molecularly targeted therapies work in different ways to treat cancer, there are many example, such as:

• Interrupting the signals that cause cancer cells to grow and divide
• stopping angiogenesis, the process that forms blood vessels, which cancer cells need to grow
• delivering cell-killing substances directly to cancer cells or directly cause cell death.
• starving cancer cells of the hormones they need to grow
• helping the immune system kill cancer cells

Most molecularly targeted therapies are either small-molecule drugs, such as tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI), or monoclonal antibodies.