Targeted drugs work differently from chemotherapy drugs, which attack all rapidly growing cells, including cancer cells. Targeted drugs attack only cancer cells and have fewer side effects than chemotherapy.

Cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy also affect healthy cells without distinguishing between healthy cells and cancer cells. Because of this characteristic of chemotherapy, the process also damages healthy cells. Treatment-induced damage to healthy cells causes complications and side effects.

Targeted therapies are designed to destroy only cancer cells, reduce damage to healthy cells and minimize side effects that negatively affect the patient’s quality of life.

Antibodies and smart molecules that act directly on the cancer cell reduce or even eliminate the side effects of chemotherapy.

In about one in five women with breast cancer, cancer cells have a cancer growth-promoting receptor protein on their surface known as HER-2 (HER2; human epidermal growth factor receptor 2). HER2-positive breast cancers grow more aggressively and tend to spread.

In this group of patients, chemotherapy and hormonal treatments alone may be insufficient. Smart drugs such as “Herceptin, Tykerb, Perjeta” developed to silence these receptors increase the effect of chemotherapy and hormonal treatment when given together.

In addition to providing tumor-specific medicines, these therapies will also minimize the side effects that are the biggest problem of cancer treatment. In the not too distant future, the effectiveness and use of smart drugs in the treatment of breast cancer is expected to expand even further.