Enhancing Other Treatments
When combined with other cancer treatments, such as radiation therapy and chemotherapy, immunotherapy reinforces and bolsters their efficacy. The effectiveness of the combination therapy treatment is due to the increased elimination of malignant cells. Immunotherapy induces an inflammatory response that attracts T cells to the malignancy, thereby augmenting the number of white blood cells. The checkpoint inhibitors disable the immune response checkpoint pathways and reverse the immune attack. The checkpoint inhibitors primarily target tumors that the immune system identifies as “hot” and do not infiltrate healthy cells.
