How Does Immunotherapy Work?
Immunotherapy is a standard treatment for certain types of cancer that employs the immune system to combat and eliminate cancer cells. Due to immunotherapy’s efficacy and low risk of adverse effects, it has become a central component of cancer treatment over the past several decades. New immunotherapy remedies are undergoing testing and approval phases in order to rapidly combat cancer using the immune system in an innovative manner.
Immunotherapy typically stimulates the immune system through the following two mechanisms:
Stimulating the body’s immune system so that it recognizes and destroys cancer cells by working wiser and harder.
Creating substances in a laboratory that are similar to immune system components and then using these substances to restore or enhance the immune system’s ability to combat cancer cells.
Immunotherapy may be effective on its own for certain varieties of cancer, but it is more effective when combined with other cancer treatments such as radiation therapy, medications, or chemotherapy for other types. In addition, immunotherapy may be more effective for some types of cancer than others. The body’s natural defense system consists of a number of organs, substances, and specialized cells that protect it from diseases and other infections. Immune system substances and specialized cells travel throughout the body to protect against infection-causing foreign invaders. In some respects, the immune system protects the body against the development of cancer.
Typically, the immune system is able to handle all of the substances prevalent in the body. Any foreign invader or substance that the immune system does not recognize triggers an alarm, thereby signaling the immune system to invade. As a result of cancer cells’ ability to conceal themselves and evade the immune system, the immune system has a difficult time targeting cancer cells. Certain proteins on the surface of cancer cells obstruct immune system signals, allowing cancer cells to remain undetected by the immune system. The fact that cancer develops in normal and healthy cells means that the immune system does not always detect their presence as foreign particles is another reason why the immune system fails to defend the body against cancer.
Cancer begins with the alteration of healthy and normal cells in the body, which then proliferate and spread in an abnormal manner. Because cancer is so common in individuals with healthy immune systems, it is abundantly evident that the immune system has certain limitations when fighting cancer on its own. Immunotherapy assists the body’s immune system in overcoming its limitations to combat cancer by controlling the following factors:
Immunotherapy causes the immune system to recognize and then attack cancer cells that are not sufficiently dissimilar from normal body cells.
Immunotherapy makes the immune response strong enough to avenge all cancer cells after the immune system recognizes them when the immune system is sometimes too feeble to fight all cancer cells.
Immunotherapy contains inhibitors and other substances that detect cancer cells, which release particles to evade detection by the immune system.
