Today’s medical research has uncovered developments we would have never even imagined. New methods are being applied to increase the quality and standard of living, and even to treat once deadly disease. Medical experts have greatly improved the treatments and preventions of several complicated disease, including cancer, with new innovations, such as immunotherapy, which have greatly improved the prognosis and life expectancy for many cancer patients.
Immunotherapy treats cancer by boosting the immune system’s ability to fight cancer. Immune system comprise various organs, tissues, and the lymph system along with white blood cells. Immunotherapy uses substances, or biological therapy, from living organisms in order to treat cancer. There are several different types of immunotherapy, some act directly against cancer while others stimulate the immune system. They include the following:
- Checkpoint Inhibitors
Our bodies have a type of white blood cells, called T-cells, which kill cancer cells. However, cancer cells interfere with the ability of T-cells, thereby taking control and allowing cancer cells to grow and divide. However, checkpoint inhibitors work by removing the brakes on T-cells and allowing them to destroy tumors.
- Adoptive cell transfer
This process attempts to increase the ability of T-cells to fight against cancer. Some T-cells are drawn from the tumor and grown in large batches. About 2 to 8 weeks are required for this growth, during which the tumor is treated through radiation therapy or chemotherapy, etc. Once these treatments are over, the T-cells grown will be injected into a vein via a needle to act against the remaining tumor.
- Monoclonal antibodies
These are immune system proteins that are created in the lab. They are created in a way that they can attach themselves to different sites on cancer cells. Some types mark the tumor cells better so that they can be destroyed by the immune system; some others cause the tumor cells to self-destruct while another type can carry toxins directly to tumor cells.
- Cancer vaccines
This type of cancer treatment works by increasing the power of the immune system so it can better act against the tumor cells. These are not the same as the preventive cancer vaccines.
