Immunotherapy (Biological Therapy)
Immunotherapy stimulates your immune system to attack cancer cells.
Immunotherapy is a type of medical oncology treatment, which also includes chemotherapy, anti-tumor antibiotics and other powerful cancer medications. Your personalized care plan may include immunotherapy treatment or other types of cancer care, such as radiation therapy or surgery.
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How immunotherapy treatment works
- Cancer attacks by hijacking your cells, causing them to rapidly multiply and create tumors.
- Your body’s immune system—a network of cells and organs that identifies and defends against diseases—often does not recognize cancer as a foreign invader like bacteria or viruses.
- Even if it does, your immune system may be overpowered by the spread of the disease.
- Using immunotherapy treatment, also known as biological therapy, we can train your immune system to recognize cancer cells and destroy them like any other disease.
- We can also use immunotherapy to strengthen your immune system and unleash its full potential in the battle against cancer.
Supercharging Your Immune System
Immunotherapy clinical trials
We offer immunotherapy treatment in clinical trials to treat brain tumors, breast cancer, prostate cancer and bladder cancer. Because immunotherapy is a relatively new form of treatment, options are constantly changing, and you may become a candidate later. Ask your doctor if you’re a good candidate for immunotherapy treatment.
Types of immunotherapy treatment
- Immune checkpoint inhibitors: This method “unmasks” cancer cells so the immune system can identify and attack them.
- Adoptive cell immunotherapy: This therapy includes chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR T-cell) therapy which genetically reprograms your T cells (a type of immune cell) to find and attack cancer cells throughout the body.
- Monoclonal antibodies: Specially designed immune system proteins are injected into the body to seek out cancer cells and help destroy them.
- Non-specific immunotherapies: These therapies do not target cancer cells directly but instead provide a boost to the immune system’s overall capabilities.
- Vaccines: We develop cancer vaccines using dead cancer cells. The vaccine is then injected into the body to stimulate the immune system to target living cancer cells.