Immunotherapy
Overview
Immunotherapy at Summit Cancer Centers helps the immune system fight cancers and infections, as well as decrease treatment side effects
What Is Immunotherapy?
Immunotherapies are treatments that restore or enhance the immune system’s natural ability to fight cancer. In just the past few years, the rapidly advancing field of cancer immunology has recently produced several new methods of treating cancer that increase the strength of immune responses against tumors.
There are many different types of immunotherapy used to treat cancer.
- Monoclonal antibodies – Drugs that are designed to bind to specific targets in the body, causing the immune system to destroys cancer cells.
- Adoptive cell transfer – A treatment that attempts to boost the natural ability of the patient’s T cells to fight cancer. T cells are a type of white blood cell and part of the immune system.
- Cytokines – Cytokines are proteins made by the body’s cells. They play important roles in normal immune responses, as well as the immune system’s ability to respond to cancer. The two main types of cytokines used to treat cancer are called interferons and interleukins.
- Treatment Vaccines – They work against cancer by boosting your immune system’s response to cancer cells. Treatment vaccines are different from the ones that help prevent disease.
- BCG – Bacillus Calmette-Guérin, is an immunotherapy used to treat bladder cancer. When inserted directly into the bladder with a catheter, BCG causes an immune response against cancer cells. It is also being studied in other types of cancer
