Advances in cancer treatment are always welcome news, but the recently held ASCO conference (the annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology), provided some exciting news about the immunotherapy cancer treatment.
Immunotherapy has been used to treat cancer for more than a decade now, and during this time it has revolutionized the way it’s treated. Here, we take a look at what immunotherapy is, how it works, and why it may hold the key to the future of cancer treatment.
What is Immunotherapy?
Immunotherapy is the utilization of the body’s immune system to fight illness and disease. Our immune system is our natural defense system against anything that shouldn’t be there, such viruses or foreign objects. When an invader is identified, the immune system signals an alarm which launches an attack, known as the immune response. Immunotherapy can be used to amplify an immune response, known as activation immunotherapy, which helps the body in its fight. It can also reduce a response to the body’s natural defenses, known as suppression immunotherapy.
Immunotherapy and Cancer
In cancer treatment, immunotherapy uses our own immune system to fight cancer. It works by helping the immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells. Cancer cells are often hard for the immune system to recognize immediately as they begin as normal cells, which can give them time to multiply and spread. Cancer cells can also give off a substance that prevents the immune system from identifying them.
Immunotherapy can boost our natural defenses so that they fight cancer cells more effectively. Biological therapies (those made in a lab) can be also given, these mimic defenses made naturally by the body, and help to restore or improve how the immune system works to attack the cancer cells.
Dr. Stephen Grobmyer, Institute Chair of the Oncology Institute at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi explains, “The use of immunotherapy to treat cancer is a complete change from standard treatments used in the past. Traditional chemotherapy seeks out cancer cells and tries to kill them or slow their growth. Immunotherapy treatments work by unblocking the body’s immune system so that it can target cancer and kill it. While it is not suitable for all cancers, it can cause some types of cancer to go into remission and even cure some people.”
The Future?
Immunotherapy has been around for more than 10 years, and a lot has happened during that time. New immunotherapy treatments have changed the direction of cancer care and the number of cancers that can be treated by immunotherapy has increased.
Dr. Grobmyer adds, “Immunotherapy has been very effective for the treatment of different types of cancer, particularly difficult to treat cancers like skin cancer and lung cancer. The updates from ASCO this year indicate that it could also improve outcomes for patients with other cancers. News that immunotherapy is now showing effective treatment results in more cancers is very exciting indeed.”
Updates:
- For the treatment of breast cancer, a new drug called pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was shown to be very effective in treatment in patients who has a particularly aggressive form of the disease, known as triple negative breast cancer, when in advanced stages and used in combination with chemotherapy.
- This drug also demonstrated promising results in patients with advanced colorectal cancer, with far greater effectiveness than chemotherapy, and with fewer side effects.
- In lung cancer patients, a combination of two immunotherapy drugs called nivolumb (Opdivio) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) were shown to be effective in a type of lung cancer known as non-small cell lung cancer, when combined with chemotherapy.
Dr. Mohamad Masri, Medical Oncologist and Infusion Center Director at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi says, “This is indeed a very exciting time for cancer treatment. New approaches to immunotherapy are changing the way we treat many cancers. We are excited to be able to offer these new approaches to patients and to see the tremendous impact they are having on patients’ lives.”
He adds, “As research and clinical trials into new immunotherapies progresses, we will continue to see improvements in outcomes for patients. Looking to the future, I think immunotherapy will play an even bigger role in cancer treatment as we unlock its true potential”