Cancer treatment is not as limited as it was years ago. Research milestones are advancing, extending life expectancy and improving outcomes. Vanessa Bell Calloway, Actress, Producer, and Breast Cancer Survivor, joined Black Health Matters Editorial Director Corynne Corbett and Dr. Lisa H. Butterfield, PhD, Cancer Immunotherapy Consultant, in a conversation about the future of cancer treatment.
Milestones are happening in the field.
“Conventional, evidence-based cancer treatments include surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, immunotherapy, and targeted therapy,” according to a July 2025 article in the European Journal of Cancer Care. These multiple categories are perceived differently by patients.
Pop culture always presents cancer therapy as an immediate road to non-stop vomiting and shivering.
Butterfield explained the significant progress being made in research. “Every cancer is different in the stage at which it’s caught, dictates your care and really influences your survival,” said Butterfield.
“Immunotherapy is where I’ve spent most of my career, and this is activating the immune system to see what it does not normally see,” she continued. “The immune system is there to protect you from bacteria and viruses, but it can be turned on and focused at your cancer.”
How Chemotherapy Has Changed
Some treatments strike fear into patients due to a lack of information. Chemotherapy frightens many. “Chemotherapy-induced symptoms not only diminish patients’ quality of life (QoL) but also evoke existential fear, fatigue, and distress across various facets of daily life,” per a 2024 article in the Journal of Healthcare.
Your iPhone camera and GPS have gotten better. Cancer treatments evolve, too, according to Butterfield.
“Technologies refine, and they get better and better,” she said.
“There have been improvements, and chemotherapy still is curative in certain cancer types,” she added. “Chemotherapy is less toxic and more specific now.”
This means that less healthy tissue may be affected by the treatment.
She described “the new chemotherapy” as a method of treatment that directly approaches the problem. It is comparable to a missile that can be used to hit its target directly.
“Instead of just flooding the system intravenously with the chemotherapy, hoping that you get the tumor more than you get other proliferative cells like your hair follicles and your GI tract, the nausea and the hair loss, this actually targets the chemotherapy to proteins that are mostly on tumor cells,” said Butterfield.
How Immunotherapy Works
Butterfield mentioned that many of the immunotherapy drugs advertised on television are PD1 inhibitors. These therapies help the immune system target cancer cells by acting like checkpoints. They keep cancer-fighting cells activated. “If there’s PDL 1 blockade, it doesn’t get turned off and now it can kill the cancer,” she continued.
They are very promising. “Every company has one and these are all critical revolution with less toxicity than a lot of those other therapy approaches.”
Find an HCP or Specialist Who Understands Your Concerns
It helps to be heard by your doctor. Bell Calloway reinforced the importance of seeking out someone who hears you. “When they tell you there’s an issue, you can believe them but never feel like you can’t take it into your own hands and see another doctor or a third doctor, whatever makes you comfortable,” she said.
“Cancer treatments are usually complex, and decisions often have to be made quickly. Feelings of fear and uncertainty are common with a new diagnosis of cancer, disease progression, or relapse. These factors can potentially lead to hasty decisions which may not always reflect patients’ preferences,” according to a 2021 article in Future Oncology.
She opted for a lumpectomy during her breast cancer journey. The surgeon appeased her but did not coddle her. There was an open dialogue between her and her doctor about why multiple surgeries were necessary.
“That saved my life because getting that second lumpectomy, it was very obvious that the tissue was very infected and the breast needed to be removed,” she said.
Having healthcare providers with whom she was comfortable helped even before treatment began. It led to her receiving a diagnosis with no symptoms. She felt something was off in the middle of the night and acted on it. She contacted her doctor, who listened to her.
“Being the drama queen that I can sometimes be, I thought I was going to have an incurable blood disease, but he told me to come on in, and I made this man do CAT scans, every kind of test,” she said. “Because I didn’t know where the problem lied. I just knew that there was an issue going on in my body that needed to be addressed.”
Cancer Vaccines Are Promising New Treatments on the Horizon
Butterfield shared that clinical trials are yielding solutions that could reduce the number of problems to be addressed in the future. Scientists are working on preventing certain forms of cancer, reducing the need for treatments one day. There is already a vaccine that is successful in blocking certain types of cervical cancer.
Every day brings us closer to more vaccines that could change lives.
“Stay tuned,” she said. “It’s possible we will have an approved cancer vaccine in the next year or two.”