Treating Cancer with Vaporizers

Guest Post by Igor 

Cancer is a frightening, deadly disease that claims the lives of millions. However, wouldn’t it be wonderful if a treatment existed that was as easy as taking a breath in? According to the University of Strathclyde, vaporizers can be used to treat certain forms of lung cancer like mesothelioma, instead of much harsher forms of treatment like chemotherapy and radiation.

Delivering the medication through a nebulizer means it gets directly to the area that requires treatment instead of being spread around the body haphazardly. It’s also much less invasive because people only need to inhale it. That’s all.

Another benefit of using vaporizers in this fashion is how quickly the medication can be administered. It also eliminates the risk of kidney damage, because it never actually enters the bloodstream. It just goes straight to the lungs. Plus, smaller doses of these potent drugs can be used for the same effect because it doesn’t have to travel through the entire body before it gets to where it needs to go.

This is good news, especially since lung cancers like mesothelioma claim thousands of lives each year. In Scotland, asbestos was used often in construction and it is asbestos exposure that is the cause of this form of cancer. It often appears many years after the initial exposure, as much as 20 to 50 years. The asbestos fibers embed themselves in the lungs and the tissue surrounding the lungs causing irritation. Over time, tumors form.

Though prevention is still the best form of treatment for cancer, administering drugs more effectively and precisely can do a world of good for those already diagnosed. Often, cancer patients succumb to the side effects caused by cancer treatment for chemotherapy and radiation. These treatments break the body down and make it less resilient, effectively destroying the immune system. By targeting only the area that has the cancer, you put the body at less risk of side effects and you do more toward keeping the immune system as a whole intact.

Using vaporizers to distribute medication to lung cancer patients makes it possible to provide the treatment without damaging healthy cells, or at least fewer healthy cells. This is a major advantage to this kind of treatment. Without so many side effects, patients stand to get the full benefits of the treatment and may be able to endure more treatments than those who get the intravenous doses, putting them on a path toward an improved likelihood of recovery.