Targeted therapy

Illustration of targeted therapy. A biopsy is carried out and the tumour analysed to determine the attributes of the cancer cells that it is made up of. Depending on the analysis of the cancerous cells, therapy can be adapted either by using monoclonal antibodies (top right) which target the cancer cells’ receptors and trigger an immune reaction destroying the detected cells or by using drugs (bottom right) which target chain reactions that are vital to survival and cell duplication, ending in the destruction of the cell. (Photo by: BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)