What is immunotherapy and how does it treat cancer and other conditions?

Immunotherapies are biological treatments that harness the immune system to prevent, control, and fight diseases. Vaccines train immune recognition of targets such as invading pathogens. Some therapies boost immune responses when they are too weak, while others dampen them when they are out of control. Engineered immune cells and lab-made antibodies can disrupt disease processes. Advanced immunotherapies have expanded rapidly over the past two decades, with clinical trials rising from 1,257 between 2006 and 2016 to 4,591 in the past decade. Cancer immunotherapies have produced major benefits, including checkpoint inhibitors that reactivate immune cells. Response varies across patients, prompting large studies to identify outcome factors. Other antibody drugs can flag tumors for destruction and block growth signals.

"Immunotherapies are biological treatments that harness the immune system to prevent, control and fight diseases and other conditions. The most familiar are vaccines, which train the immune system to recognise targets such as invading pathogens. Other immunotherapies boost immune responses when they are too weak, or dampen them down when they are out of control. Still others draw on engineered immune cells or lab-made antibodies to disrupt disease processes."

"A global registry of clinical trials listed 1,257 trials of immunotherapies between 2006 and 2016. The figure leapt to 4,591 in the past decade. It's really exciting. People are starting to realise just how important the immune system is, says Adrian Liston, an immunologist and professor of pathology at the University of Cambridge. This is the era of immunology."

"Some tumours evade the body's defences by switching off immune cells, but antibody-based drugs called checkpoint inhibitors reactivate them so they can recognise and attack the malignancies. Highly mutated or hot cancers such as melanoma can respond particularly well, but not in all patients. Why some patients do well and others barely respond is a significant puzzle researchers hope to answer with a four-year study that launched last week."

"The project will recruit thousands of patients with breast, bladder, kidney and skin cancer to learn what factors affect their outcomes. Other antibody-based medicines tackle cancer differently. A drug called herceptin binds to breast and stomach tumours and flags them for destruction, while blocking chemical signals that tell the cancer to grow."

Read at www.theguardian.com