A Primer on Immunotherapy
Hester Hill Schnipper, LICSW, OSW-C Program Manager, Oncology Social Work
FEBRUARY 03, 2017
Most of us are familiar, to a greater or lesser degree, with immunotherapy. Here is the definition from the American Cancer Society:
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.
From a patient's perspective, there are a couple of very big advantages to this approach: it often works really well, and there are usually fewer side effects than from traditional chemotherapy. The reason for that is that immunotherapy targets particular cells or parts of cells and does not interfere with other non-cancer cells--this translates to no hair loss, usually less GI distress, etc.
This article is from ASCO's CancerNet and gives a very nice summary:
Immunotherapy 2.0: The 2017 Clinical Cancer Advance of the Year
Today, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) released its
Clinical Cancer Advances 2017 report. This annual report outlines the
important progress being made in cancer research and highlights current and
upcoming trends in the field. Included in this report is ASCO’s selection
of the year’s most important progress made in the care of people with
cancer. The 2017 Advance of the Year is Immunotherapy 2.0. Why 2.0? Because
in the past 12 months, the role of immunotherapy has significantly grown.
Research has uncovered early clues about when these treatments may work
better. These insights will help guide treatment planning.
“Over the last year, there has been a wave of new successes with
immunotherapy,” writes ASCO President Daniel F. Hayes, MD, FASCO, FACP.
“Research has proven this approach can be effective against a wide range of
hard-to-treat advanced cancers previously considered intractable.”
Immunotherapy is a treatment designed to boost the body’s natural defenses
to fight cancer. It uses substances, or cells made by the body, or
treatments made in a laboratory to improve or restore immune system
function. While scientists have been exploring various immunotherapy
approaches for more than 100 years, the biggest success so far has been
with treatments known as immune checkpoint inhibitors. Checkpoint
inhibitors are a type of immunotherapy that works by taking the brakes off
the immune system so it is better able to destroy the cancer.