Immunotherapy is treatment that uses certain
parts of a person’s immune system to fight diseases such as cancer.
This can be done in a couple of ways.
- Stimulating your own immune system to work harder or smarter to attack cancer cells
- Giving you immune system components, such as man-made immune system proteins
Some types of immunotherapy are also sometimes called biologic therapy or biotherapy.
For a long time doctors suspected that the
immune system could affect certain cancers. Even before the immune
system was well understood, William Coley, MD, a New York surgeon, first
noted that getting an infection after surgery seemed to help some
cancer patients. In the late 1800s, he began treating cancer patients by
infecting them with certain kinds of bacteria, which came to be known
as Coley toxins. Although he had some success, his technique was
overshadowed when other forms of cancer treatment, such as radiation
therapy, came into use.
Since then, doctors have learned a great
deal about the immune system and how it might be used to treat cancer.
In the last few decades immunotherapy has become an important part of
treating some types of cancer. Newer types of immune treatments are now
being studied for many other types, and they’ll impact how we treat
cancer in the future.
Immunotherapy includes treatments that work
in different ways. Some boost the body’s immune system in a very general
way. Others help train the immune system to attack cancer cells
specifically.
No comments:
Post a Comment