Immunotherapy is a form of biologic therapy or biotherapy . It is treatment that uses certain parts of the immune system to fight diseases, including cancer. This can be done in a couple of ways:11. Miễn dịch liệu pháp cho bn là làm sao?
- Stimulating your own immune system to work harder or smarter
- Giving you immune system components, such as man-made immune system proteins
Immunotherapy is sometimes used by itself to treat cancer, but it is most often used along with or after another type of treatment to boost its effects.
The active agents of immunotherapy are collectively called immunomodulators . They are a diverse array of recombinant, synthetic and natural preparations, often cytokines . Some of these substances, such as granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), interferons , imiquimod and cellular membrane fractions from bacteria are already licensed for use in patients. Others including IL-2 , IL-7 , IL-12 , various chemokines , synthetic cytosine phosphate-guanosine (CpG), oligodeoxynucleotides and glucans are currently being investigated extensively in clinical and preclinical studies. Immunomodulatory regimens offer an attractive approach as they often have fewer side effects than existing drugs, including less potential for creating resistance in microbial diseases.
Cell based Immunotherapies are proven to be effective for some cancers. Immune effector cells such as lymphocytes , macrophages , dendritic cells , natural killer cells (NK Cell), cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL), etc., work together to defend the body against cancer by targeting abnormal antigens expressed on the surface of the tumor due to mutation.