How Immunotherapy Supports Your Immune System to Fight Cancer

Cancer treatments have come a long way, and one of the most exciting developments in recent years is immunotherapy. This innovative approach doesn’t just attack cancer cells directly; it works by strengthening your own immune system to help it fight cancer more effectively. In this blog post, we’ll break down how immunotherapy supports your immune system, making it easier to understand and appreciate how it helps the body combat cancer with potentially fewer side effects than traditional treatments.

What is Immunotherapy?

Immunotherapy is a type of cancer treatment that helps your immune system recognize and destroy cancer cells more efficiently. Unlike chemotherapy or radiation, which work by directly attacking cancer cells, immunotherapy boosts or enhances the body’s natural defences. Here’s how it works:

1. Empowering the Immune System: Immunotherapy helps your immune system to work better at finding and attacking cancer cells.
2. Targeting Specific Cancer Cells: It can train the immune system to specifically target cancer cells without harming normal cells.
3. Overcoming Cancer’s Evasion Tactics: Cancer cells often hide from the immune system or suppress its activity. Immunotherapy can help remove these barriers.

How Your Immune System Fights Cancer

To understand how immunotherapy supports your immune system, it’s helpful to know how the immune system normally fights cancer:

1. Detection: The immune system constantly monitors the body for abnormal cells. It can detect cancer cells because they often have different markers compared to healthy cells.
2. Attack: Once the immune system identifies these abnormal cells, it sends immune cells to destroy them.
3. Memory: After the immune system has fought off an invader, it creates a memory of it. This means it can respond more quickly if the same threat appears again.

However, cancer cells can sometimes evade this process. They might disguise themselves as normal cells or release substances that dampen the immune response. This is where immunotherapy comes in to help.

How Immunotherapy Enhances Your Immune System

Immunotherapy works in several ways to boost the immune system’s ability to fight cancer:

1. Enhancing Immune Cells
   • Monoclonal Antibodies: These are lab-made proteins designed to bind to specific targets on cancer cells. This helps the immune system recognize and destroy those cells. For example, some monoclonal antibodies mark cancer cells so they’re more easily spotted by immune cells, while others deliver toxins directly to the cancer cells, killing them.
   • Cytokines: These are proteins that help regulate and direct the immune response. In immunotherapy, synthetic cytokines can boost the immune system’s ability to fight cancer. They work by enhancing the immune cells’ ability to attack cancer cells or by increasing the production of immune cells.
2. Training the Immune System
   • Cancer Vaccines: Similar to vaccines used for infectious diseases, cancer vaccines stimulate the immune system to attack cancer cells. These vaccines can be used to prevent cancer or to treat existing cancer by training the immune system to recognize and destroy cancer cells more effectively.
3. Removing Barriers
   • Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors: These are designed to block proteins that normally prevent immune cells from attacking normal cells. By inhibiting these checkpoints, immunotherapy allows immune cells to target and kill cancer cells. This has been particularly effective in treating cancers like melanoma and lung cancer, where these checkpoints are often exploited by cancer cells to avoid detection.
4. Modifying Immune Cells
   • Adoptive Cell Transfer: This involves taking immune cells from a patient, modifying them in the lab to better recognize and attack cancer cells, and then reinfusing them into the patient’s body. CAR T-cell therapy is a well-known example of this approach. It involves modifying T-cells to better target cancer cells, significantly improving their ability to fight certain types of cancer.

Types of Immunotherapy and How They Work

Here’s a closer look at some of the main types of immunotherapy:

1. Monoclonal Antibodies
   • How They Work: These antibodies are designed to bind to specific proteins on cancer cells. By attaching to these proteins, they mark the cancer cells for destruction by the immune system or deliver toxins directly to the cells.
2. Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors
   • How They Work: Checkpoint inhibitors block proteins that turn off immune cells. By inhibiting these proteins, these therapies prevent cancer cells from escaping immune detection.
3. Cancer Vaccines
   • How They Work: These vaccines stimulate the immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells. Some vaccines are used to prevent cancer from developing, while others are used to treat existing cancer by boosting the immune response.
4. Adoptive Cell Transfer
   • How It Works: Immune cells are collected from the patient, genetically modified to better attack cancer cells, and then infused back into the patient’s bloodstream.
5. Cytokines
   • How They Work: Cytokines are used to enhance the body’s immune response. They can stimulate the production and activity of immune cells to better target and destroy cancer cells.

How Immunotherapy Compares to Traditional Treatments

Immunotherapy offers several advantages compared to traditional cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiation:

1. Targeted Approach
   • Traditional Treatments: Chemotherapy and radiation target both cancerous and healthy cells, which can lead to significant side effects.
   • Immunotherapy: This treatment specifically targets cancer cells or boosts the immune system to do so, often resulting in fewer side effects.
2. Long-Lasting Effects
   • Traditional Treatments: These treatments can be effective but often need to be repeated, as cancer cells may return.
   • Immunotherapy: By training the immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells, immunotherapy can provide long-term protection against cancer recurrence.
3. Personalised Treatment
   • Traditional Treatments: Chemotherapy and radiation are generally standardised.
   • Immunotherapy: It can be more personalised, tailored to the patient’s specific type of cancer and immune system.

Who Can Benefit from Immunotherapy?

Immunotherapy is a promising option for many cancer patients, but it’s not suitable for everyone. Factors that can influence its effectiveness include:

1. Type of Cancer: Immunotherapy has been particularly effective for cancers like melanoma, lung cancer, kidney cancer, and certain lymphomas.
2. Stage of Cancer: The stage of cancer can affect how well immunotherapy works. Early-stage cancers might respond differently than advanced ones.
3. Patient’s Overall Health: Patients with a healthy immune system might benefit more from immunotherapy.

What to Expect During Immunotherapy Treatment

If you’re considering immunotherapy, here’s a general overview of what you might expect:

1. Initial Consultation: Your oncologist will discuss your cancer diagnosis and treatment options, including whether immunotherapy is appropriate for you.
2. Treatment Plan: If immunotherapy is chosen, your doctor will create a personalised treatment plan. This might involve combining immunotherapy with other treatments like surgery or chemotherapy.
3. Administration: Immunotherapy can be administered in various ways, including through an IV infusion, oral medication, or injections, depending on the specific type of therapy.
4. Monitoring and Follow-Up: Throughout treatment, your progress will be monitored with regular scans and tests to assess how well the therapy is working.
5. Ongoing Care: After treatment, you’ll have follow-up visits to ensure the cancer remains under control and to manage any long-term effects.

The Future of Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy is a rapidly evolving field. Researchers are exploring new ways to enhance its effectiveness, including:

1. Combining Therapies: Using different types of immunotherapy together or with other treatments to improve results.
2. Expanding Treatment Options: Developing new immunotherapies to treat a wider range of cancers.
3. Personalised Approaches: Tailoring immunotherapy based on genetic and molecular information to better suit individual patients.

Conclusion

Immunotherapy represents a groundbreaking approach to cancer treatment, harnessing the power of the immune system to target and destroy cancer cells. By enhancing the immune system’s natural abilities and overcoming cancer’s evasion tactics, immunotherapy offers hope for more effective and personalised cancer care with potentially fewer side effects than traditional treatments. If you’re considering immunotherapy, talk to your healthcare provider to determine if it’s the right option for you.