Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy is a type of cancer treatment that helps your immune system fight cancer. This can be done by stimulating your body’s own immune system to attack cancer, or by training the immune system to attack cancer cells directly. Immunotherapy is being used to treat lung, kidney, bladder, head/neck and some skin cancers, as well as lymphoma. The oncologists at Hall-Perrine Cancer Center will work with you to determine whether immunotherapy is an option that can be used in treating your particular type of cancer. 

Types of Immunotherapy

The main types of immunotherapy drugs treating cancer include:

• Checkpoint inhibitors are drugs that help the immune system respond more strongly to a tumor. These drugs work by releasing "brakes" that keep T cells (a type of white blood cell and part of the immune system) from killing cancer cells. These drugs do not target the tumor directly. Instead, they interfere with the ability of cancer cells to avoid immune system attack.
• Adoptive cell transfer is a treatment that attempts to boost the natural ability of your T cells to fight cancer. In this treatment, T cells are taken from your tumor. Then, those that are most active against your cancer are grown in large batches in the lab. The process of growing your T cells in the lab can take two to eight weeks. During this time, you may have treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation therapy to reduce your immune cells. After these treatments, the T cells that were grown in the lab will be given back to you via a needle in your vein.
• Monoclonal antibodies, also known as therapeutic antibodies, are immune system proteins produced in the lab. These antibodies are designed to attach to specific targets found on cancer cells. Some monoclonal antibodies mark cancer cells so that they will be better seen and destroyed by the immune system, and these are a type of immunotherapy. Other monoclonal antibodies that are used in cancer treatment do not cause a response from the immune system. Such monoclonal antibodies are considered to be targeted therapy, rather than immunotherapy.

How Immunotherapy Is Given

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.
• Intravesical - The immunotherapy goes directly into the bladder.

Clinical information courtesy of the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society.