{"id":467,"date":"2019-05-22T18:16:42","date_gmt":"2019-05-22T23:16:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mesotheliomagroup.com\/?p=467"},"modified":"2019-06-05T18:19:09","modified_gmt":"2019-06-05T23:19:09","slug":"what-is-immunotherapy-how-does-it-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mesotheliomagroup.com\/blog\/what-is-immunotherapy-how-does-it-help\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Immunotherapy, How Does it Help?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"immunotherapy\"Immunotherapy<\/strong> is the leading edge of a revolution in cancer treatment<\/a>. These drugs give new hope to Stage IV cancer<\/a> patients who were out of treatment options. Some patients with forms of cancer that are particularly hard to treat, such as pancreatic cancer and even mesothelioma, have benefited from immunotherapy<\/a> treatments.<\/p>\n

Still, immunotherapy is not a magic bullet. While these cutting-edge treatments have produced some astounding results, researchers haven\u2019t been able to repeat these successes with large groups of cancer patients. Immunotherapy may be the key, but scientists still haven\u2019t figured out how to unlock the door.<\/p>\n

Immunotherapy <\/strong>is now an accepted treatment for many forms of cancer, including mesothelioma<\/a>. Your doctor may offer you the option of trying immunotherapy drugs such as Keytruda or Opdivo. Understanding mesothelioma immunotherapy can help you decide whether this treatment is right for you.<\/p>\n

What is Immunotherapy?<\/h4>\n

Standard of care mesothelioma treatments include surgery<\/a> to remove the cancerous tumor, chemotherapy to kill cancer cells, and radiation<\/a> to shrink the tumor. Immunotherapy<\/strong> is a type of chemotherapy<\/a>, but it works differently from traditional chemotherapy drugs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cancer cells tend to grow faster than healthy, normal cells in your body. Chemotherapy drugs seek out fast-growing cells and kill them. Chemotherapy treatment is a systemic cancer treatment. It attacks cancer cells anywhere in your body, including cells that have metastasized or travelled away from your original tumor.<\/p>\n

Immunotherapy drugs operate on a different principle. Rather than trying to directly kill cancer cells, these drugs target your immune system. This type of cancer treatment aims to strengthen your immune response to fight back against your mesothelioma cancer.<\/p>\n

How Does Mesothelioma Immunotherapy Work?<\/h4>\n

Immunotherapy<\/strong> treatments are possible because scientists have learned more about how cancer cells grow. Your immune system is designed to detect and kill abnormal or damaged cells quickly. It has robust mechanisms to keep your body free from intruders and harmful mutations.<\/p>\n

These mechanisms are triggered by an intricate system of proteins that act as checkpoints for your immune system. The checkpoints regulate your immune system to protect you from overactive immune responses. One example is a mechanism that turns on when a woman is pregnant. The immune regulation prevents her body from sensing the fetus as a foreign body and attacking it. Cancer cells hijack these natural mechanisms to grow unchecked.<\/p>\n

The hallmark of cancer is cells that grow unchecked and invade surrounding tissues. To do this, cancer cells have to ignore signals from the body that would tell them to shut down and die off. They have to find ways to evade your immune system\u2019s T cells that would otherwise kill them off before they could reproduce. Some cancer cells have evolved ways to use immune system checkpoints to hide from T cells or avoid programmed cell death. Immunotherapy treatments turn these checkpoints back on. This allows your immune system to attack these mutant cells and kill them.<\/p>\n

Scientists are also working to develop personalized cancer treatments that work with your immune system. One type of personalized cancer treatment involves removing some of your T cells and altering them to specifically target your cancer cells. Scientists then grow these edited immune cells in the lab. They inject this immune cell army back into your body, where they hope it will attack your cancer cells. This approach is time-consuming and it\u2019s still in the experimental stage. It has only been tried on a small number of patients, but the early results show promise.<\/p>\n

Your immune system is more powerful than the most powerful chemotherapy drug. Every day, your body kills off problem cells and ejects invaders. If researchers can figure out how to harness this power, it will be a powerful tool in the fight against mesothelioma and other deadly cancers.<\/p>\n

Side Effects of Treatment<\/h4>\n

Chemotherapy often has distressing side effects. Because the drugs also kill fast-growing cells that aren\u2019t cancerous, many patients lose their hair. Our stomachs are lined with fast-growing cells, so digestion is often disrupted. Your sense of taste can also be affected and you may have a hard time eating spicy foods during chemo treatment.<\/p>\n

Not everyone has severe side effects from chemotherapy. Your doctor may prescribe other medications to manage your chemotherapy side effects.<\/p>\n

One of the promises of immunotherapy is that it may have fewer side effects than chemo because it is more targeted. This isn\u2019t always the case, however.<\/p>\n

These treatments can send your immune system into overdrive. In some cases, this may cause your immune system to attack healthy cells in your body. This can make you feel sick.<\/p>\n

Common side effects include:<\/p>\n