Immunotherapy is one of the biggest breakthroughs in cancer treatment. By harnessing the body’s own immune system to identify and eradicate cancer cells, these therapies offer new hope and better outcomes for patients.
While a healthy immune system can deter or slow the development of cancer, cancer cells are clever. They may create genetic changes that make them less recognizable, or use proteins to disable immune cells or otherwise disrupt a positive immune response.
Today, various forms of immunotherapy are used to treat many types of cancer. As new drugs and therapies continue to emerge, they offer renewed hope and a future with more options for patients and their families.
“There’s a broad range of immunotherapies that have been tested and improved over many years,” said Endeavor Health oncologist Bruce Brockstein, MD.
“Ninety percent of immunotherapy treatments that we are using today are simple checkpoint inhibitor drugs that are given by infusion and are generally fairly easy to take with fewer side effects than traditional chemotherapy.”
Monoclonal antibodies and checkpoint inhibitors
Monoclonal antibodies are a key type of immunotherapy. They work by finding and locking onto specific proteins on the surface of cancer cells, which flags the cells for the immune system to attack and destroy.
Checkpoint inhibitors are a specialized type of monoclonal antibody. They obstruct immune checkpoints, which are a natural component of the immune system designed to ensure that immune responses are not too vigorous.
By inhibiting these natural checkpoint proteins, the drugs allow the immune system to mount a stronger, more effective attack against cancer cells. In a sense, it acts as a “double negative,” by taking the breaks off the immune system, explained Dr. Brockstein.
“These drugs have had a major impact on how we treat patients and how we are improving outcomes with better quality of life and cure rates,” said Dr. Brockstein.
And because these drugs are generally much easier to tolerate than standard chemotherapies, people don’t have to build their lives around their treatment schedule, he added. “Patients can keep working, they can go on vacation while on treatment.”
Cancer vaccines
Other forms of immunotherapy include cancer vaccines. Personalized cancer vaccines are largely in development, taking specific tumor antigens and creating vaccines matched to the specifics of the tumor, explained Dr. Brockstein. Advance trials are now helping move these therapies forward.
Cellular therapies
Cellular therapies are now offered for most blood cancers, including lymphoma, myeloma, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
CAR T-cell therapy involves chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) genetically modified T cells (a type of immune cells) that are designed to recognize and activate specific tumor cell molecules to destroy malignant cells. The patient’s own immune cells are collected in a process similar to dialysis, engineered to fight the cancer cells, and then given back to the patient.
Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) entail harvesting white blood cell lymphocyte from a tumor, creating more of them in a lab, and infusing them back into patients. This therapy is now being used in more solid tumor cancers.
These treatments are more complex, more tailored, and often come with more side effects than checkpoint inhibitor drugs, said Dr. Brockstein, but also provide game-changing options for patients who just a few years ago would have faced very dire prognoses.
Better cure rates
As immunotherapy continues to revolutionize cancer treatment, patients are seeing far better cure rates and quality of life.
“Our use of immunotherapy has grown from 0% in 2010 to 1% in 2013 and now 30-40% of our treatment plans,” said Dr. Brockstein.
“For example, immunotherapy is the main treatment for almost all patients with advanced melanoma, and it has truly provided miraculous new cures.”
Related Articles
