Immunotherapy, a new approach to cancer therapy, uses specially created antibodies made to recognize specific cancers. Treatments stimulate or restore the ability of the immune system to fight infections, cancer, and other diseases. Sometimes immunotherapy is used to lessen the side effects that some cancer treatments may cause. Immunotherapy is also known as biological therapy, biotherapy, or biological response modifier (BRM) therapy.
Your immune system includes your spleen, lymph nodes, tonsils, bone marrow, and white blood cells. These all help protect you from getting infections and diseases. When your immune system works the way it should, it can tell the difference between "good" cells that keep you healthy and "bad" cells that make you sick. But sometimes this doesn't happen. Doctors are doing research to learn why some immune systems don't fight off diseases like cancer.
Cancer vaccines are a form of biological therapy that may help your body fight the cancer and keep it from coming back. While other vaccines (like ones for measles or mumps) are given before you get sick, cancer vaccines are given after you have cancer. Cancer vaccines may help your body fight the cancer and keep it from coming back. Doctors are learning more all the time about cancer vaccines. They are now doing research about how cancer vaccines can help people diagnosed with melanoma, lymphoma, and kidney, breast, ovarian, prostate, colon, and rectal cancers.
There are many kinds of biological therapy. Here are the names of some common immunotherapy treatments and brief statements about how they are used in cancer care.
Cancer immunotherapy treatments
- BCG treats bladder tumors or bladder cancer.
- IL-2, or Interleukin-2, enhances the ability of the immune system to kill tumor cells and may interfere with blood flow to the tumor. It treats metastatic renal cell
cancer and metastatic melanoma.
- Interferon alpha interferes with the division of cancer cells and can slow tumor growth. It treats metastatic melanoma.
- Rituxan, or Rituximab, treats non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
- Herceptin, or Trastuzumab, treats breast cancer.
Immunotherapy treatments to control side effects
- Neupogen, or G-CSF, increases white blood cell counts and helps prevent infection in people who are getting chemotherapy.
- Procrit, Epogen, or Erythropoietin helps make red blood cells for people with anemia.
- IL-11, Interleukin-11, Oprelvekin, or Neumega helps make platelets.
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