Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy is a type of cancer treatment that helps your immune system fight cancer. The immune system helps your body fight infections and other diseases. It is made up of white blood cells and organs and tissues of the lymph system.

Immunotherapy is a type of biological therapy which is a type of treatment that uses substances made from living organisms to treat cancer.

As part of its normal function, the immune system detects and destroys abnormal cells and most likely prevents or curbs the growth of many cancers.

Even though the immune system can prevent or slow cancer growth, cancer cells have ways to avoid destruction by the immune system. For example, cancer cells may:

• Have genetic changes that make them less visible to the immune system.
• Have proteins on their surface that turn off immune cells.
• Change the normal cells around the tumour so they interfere with how the immune system responds to the cancer cells.

Immunotherapy helps the immune system to better act against cancer.

Several types of immunotherapy are used to treat cancer. 

These include:

• Immune checkpoint inhibitors, which are drugs that block immune checkpoints. These checkpoints are a normal part of the immune system and keep immune responses from being too strong. By blocking them, these drugs allow immune cells to respond more strongly to cancer.
  
  
• T-cell transfer therapy, which is a treatment that boosts the natural ability of your T cells to fight cancer. In this treatment, immune cells are taken from your tumour. Those that are most active against your cancer are selected or changed in the lab to better attack your cancer cells, grown in large batches, and put back into your body through a needle in a vein.
  
  
• Treatment vaccines, which work against cancer by boosting your immune system’s response to cancer cells. Treatment vaccines are different from the ones that help prevent disease.
  
  
• Immune system modulators, which enhance the body’s immune response against cancer. Some of these agents affect specific parts of the immune system, whereas others affect the immune system in a more general way.
  
  

Immunotherapy drugs have been approved to treat many types of cancer. However, immunotherapy is not yet as widely used as surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation therapy.

Immunotherapy can cause side effects, many of which happen when the immune system that has been revved-up to act against the cancer also acts against healthy cells and tissues in your body.

Different forms of immunotherapy may be given in different ways. These include:

intravenous (IV)

The immunotherapy goes directly into a vein.

oral

The immunotherapy comes in pills or capsules that you swallow.

topical

The immunotherapy comes in a cream that you rub onto your skin. This type of immunotherapy can be used for very early skin cancer.

How often and how long you receive immunotherapy depends on:

1. your type of cancer and how advanced it is
2. the type of immunotherapy you get
3. how your body reacts to treatment

You may have treatment every day, week, or month. Some types of immunotherapy given in cycles. A cycle is a period of treatment followed by a period of rest. The rest period gives your body a chance to recover, respond to immunotherapy, and build new healthy cells.

How can you tell if immunotherapy is working?

You will have medical tests, such as blood tests and different types of scans. These tests will measure the size of your tumour and look for changes in your blood work.