Cancer Immunotherapy Month
June is Cancer Immunotherapy Month. Immunotherapy is a unique set of treatments for cancer that harness the power of the immune system to fight and kill cancer cells. The immune system is a good candidate for treating cancer because part of its daily function is to detect and destroy abnormal cells. It also prevents or at least curbs the growth of many cancers. Despite the body being able to slow and destroy cancer cells, cancer cells have the ability to evade detection by the immune system and can avoid destruction. There are multiple ways that cancer cells can evade the immune system including cancer cells having genetic changes that make them less visible to the immune system, having proteins on their surface that turn off immune cells, and being able to change the normal cells around a tumor to interfere with the immune system responding to cancer cells.
There are multiple types of immunotherapy. One type includes immune checkpoint inhibitors. These drugs block immune checkpoints, which are ways to prevent the immune response from being too strong. When they are blocked, they can more aggressively fight cancer. Another type of immunotherapy is T-cell transfer therapy. This therapy boosts the ability of T cells to fight cancer. The treatment involves taking immune cells from the person’s tumor, and those that are most active are selected or changed in a lab to better attack cancer cells. They are then grown in large batches and administered via needle. Another treatment involves monoclonal antibodies, which are immune system proteins created in a lab. They are designed to bind to specific targets on cancer cells. Some monoclonal antibodies are used to mark cancer cells so they can be killed by the immune system. Another type of immunotherapy is treatment vaccines. They work by boosting the immune response to cancer cells. Finally, there are immune system modulators, which either affect the immune system generally or in more specific ways.
Immunotherapy is a very useful tool in the fight against cancer. It is not perfect though and more research needs to be done to enhance and improve outcomes for patients. One part of research is trying to find solutions for resistance. Researchers are combining immune checkpoint therapy, targeted therapy, and radiation therapy to find ways to overcome resistance to immunotherapy. Another interesting field is trying to find how people will respond to immunotherapy. This could help doctors determine if patients would be a good fit for immunotherapy regimens. Another interesting research topic in immunotherapy is learning how cancer cells evade or suppress immune responses against them. Understanding these processes could lead to new drugs that block the processes, improving cancer treatment.
