Beyond Diaries

I bet you would have come across the term ‘immunotherapy’ a several times. Ever wondered what this complicated term means? Keep reading to find out more.

Immunotherapy is coming out to be one of the promising therapies to treat cancer. Yes, you heard me right! As challenging as a tumour might appear to treat, scientists have worked immensely on trying to figure out ways to dodge the ever growing cells. Well, as you might know that cancer is the abnormal growth of cells, it becomes increasingly difficult to treat it at the later stages. This is because these horrific little monsters have already spread to other parts of the body, what we call ‘metastasis’. Moreover, cancer leaves no stone unturned in weakening your immune system.

A weakened immune system can have serious implications on your body. This includes impairing the immune cells to do their work in fighting cancer. Hence, something had to be done to fight this evil. Immunotherapy aims to do just the same. It is a form of therapy that helps the immune system fight cancer. Although this form of therapy was originally developed to fight cancer, there is ongoing research to use it for other diseases as well.

Fun fact: Did you know that in 1981, WIlliam Coley (the father of immunotherapy) was the first one to attempt leveraging the immune system to treat cancer. He noticed that a mixture of live and inactivated Streptococcus pyogenes and Serratia marcescens caused tumor regression in sarcoma patients [1].

Exciting, isn’t?

Interestingly, immunotherapy can be given in several ways like:

1. Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs): these are special proteins which are created to bind to certain targets on cancer cells. These type of proteins could be designed to bind to a single target or can be bi-specific in nature i.e. dual targeting potential. You can learn more about mAbs over here.
2. Immune-checkpoint inhibitors: Immune-checkpoints are a part of the immune system and their normal function is to prevent a strong response by the immune system. The inhibitors are designed to block these immune-checkpoints so that the immune system can react more strongly to the cancer cells.

Additionally, there are cancer vaccines like the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. Cancers found in the cervical, anal, throat or penile regions can be prevented by the use of HPV vaccine. Other form of immunotherapy is using one’s own immune cells, enhancing them in the lab and putting it back into the patient. Read more about CAR-T cell therapy here.

Challenges with immunotherapy

Like with any other form of cancer therapy, immunotherapy comes with its own set of challenges. Resistance is one of them. Scientists are still trying to figure out the mechanisms to evade the resistance, which pose a major hurdle to the patients in remission.

Another challenge remains in the therapy response. It is hard to predict whether a given set of patients will respond to the treatment. Precision medicine is the need of the hour and could pave way for more personalized treatment to the patients.

A tumour is highly heterogenous and hence many factors have to be taken into account before a treatment is established. A lot goes into research, both time and money.

I hope that you would benefit from my simple explanation of what immunotherapy is and how it could benefit cancer patients.

References:

1. Zhang, Y., Zhang, Z. The history and advances in cancer immunotherapy: understanding the characteristics of tumor-infiltrating immune cells and their therapeutic implications. Cell Mol Immunol 17, 807–821 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41423-020-0488-6