Immunotherapy cancer treatment utilizes the immense power of your body’s natural immune system. Our immune system is made up of white blood cells, organs, and tissues of the lymph system. It helps our body fight infection and illness by detecting and attacking the ailment-causing microbes.

Every day we come in contact with germs and disease-causing bacteria. In the absence of our immune system, these microbes can cause infection, ailment, and even death.

The immune system helps keep our body healthy by keeping a track of all the cells normally found in the human body. It allows the immune system to identify any abnormalities and attack foreign bodies that find their way into our bodies.

The immunotherapy cancer treatment has gathered immense popularity due to its benefits in being used in conjunction with other cancer treatments as well as being a suitable treatment alternative when other methods have proven to be ineffective.

Let us discuss immunotherapy cancer treatment in detail.

Immunotherapy cancer treatment

Immunotherapy is a biological treatment method that uses substances made from a living organism (i.e., our immune system) to fight cancer. The process involves collecting and storing your healthy immune cells for medical emergencies.

These cells can be collected processed and reintroduced into the body to fight cancer. Immunotherapy can provide significant support to your immune system and can help a weakened immune system post-chemotherapy and radiation treatment.

Immunotherapy in treating different cancers

Immunotherapy helps the immune system to better respond to cancer cells. Cancer originates as normal cells in the body and slowly grow and develop to become cancer cells.

Since these cells were initially normal body cells, the immune system does not perceive them as a threat. The transition into cancer cells is gradual, and our immune cells fail to identify them in their early stages.

The cancer cells can have protein on their surface that can deactivate the immune cells. They can also have genetic alterations that make it difficult for our immune system to detect and destroy these cells.

In some cases, our body’s immune response is not enough to restrict the growth of these cells. Also, the cancer cells may alter the normal cells around the tumor and interfere with our immune response.

Our immune system and its ability to fight against disease gradually decrease due to age and lifestyle choices. Hence immunotherapy can provide a much-needed boost to our body’s immune system and helps in the prevention, treatment, and elimination of cancer cells.

Immunotherapy cancer treatment works by one of the two methods. It either activates and boosts your immune system to find and attack cancer cells. The other method is synthesizing artificial substances that resemble the components of your body’s immune system. This boosts your immune system’s response in identifying and treating cancer.

Different ways immunotherapy is used to treat cancer

Various types of immunotherapies used to treat cancer are as follows.

1. Adoptive cell therapy

In adoptive cell therapy, the cells are collected from the body, modified, and reintroduced into the boys to fight cancer. CAR-T cell therapy is an adoptive cell therapy in which immune cells are collected from the tumor and altered with chimeric antigen receptors. The cells are grown in large numbers in the laboratory and infused into the body to fight cancer cells.

2. Immune system modulators

As the name suggests, Immune system modulators stimulate your immune system to boost its response to cancer cells. These drugs can either affect specific parts of your immune system or the entire system as a whole.

3. Monoclonal antibodies

Monoclonal antibodies, also known as therapeutic antibodies, are immune system proteins synthesized in a laboratory. They can attach themselves to specific parts of the cancer cells and marks the cell. This makes it easier for the immune system to detect and destroy these cells.

4. Cancer treatment vaccines

Cancer vaccines are given to healthy individuals to prevent the occurrence of cancer. They initiate an immune response to cancer cells and reduces the chances of future ailment.