What is immunotherapy, and what type of cancer is it used to treat?
Immunotherapy is a type of treatment that uses certain parts of a person’s immune system to fight cancer. It works in two ways, one of which is stimulating the immune system to attack the disease at a cellular level.
Using vaccines is one of the earliest forms of immunotherapy, where a weakened version of bacteria is introduced into the body so that the immune system can learn how to fight off the actual disease. “Immune checkpoint inhibitors”, which constitute the most groundbreaking current therapy, release the “brakes” on one’s immune system, harnessing it to recognise and attack the cancer cells.
The second way immunotherapy works is by providing the body with immune system components, such as man-made proteins or “monoclonal antibodies”. The advent of technology, especially in the area of cancer treatment, has allowed for the advancement of immunotherapy where drugs can specifically target cancer cells while leaving healthy cells undamaged.
These immunotherapy drugs are used to treat a wide variety of cancers, including lung, melanoma, head and neck, gastrointestinal, breast, kidney, bladder and Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The use of immune checkpoint inhibitors to treat cancer could even be more effective than chemotherapy or targeted therapy in certain cancers, as it has higher response rates with longer disease control periods and has fewer incidences of side effects.
But, although immunotherapy is effective for a wide range of cancers, a patient may have to undergo other types of therapy such as targeted therapy before starting on immunotherapy. It’s best for a patient to speak with his or her doctor to determine if immunotherapy can be implemented into any treatment plan.