Nothing can be better than using your own immune system to fight cancer.. We are not saying it always wins..but it does win..many times!
A system our body has in order to fight infection is known as the immune system or immunity. This immunity is such a strong power a man has which can even fight death and bring the man back from its jaws.
Immunity in a bigger form is being used in fighting even a bigger disease and this strong anti-Cancer therapy has been introduced as Immunotherapy. It actually is a form of medical treatment that is responsible to activate your immune system for helping fight cancer.
Many different kinds of immune cells are there in our body. In fact, different cells have been given responsibility of fighting different types of cancer. Here we can talk of T cells for example. The way the immune system fights cancer is by
Body asks immunity to wage war against cancer and in response to that immunity sends out a special form of white blood cells to attack on Cancer virus. This special white blood cells are called T cells.
The T cells see yells at Cancer virus – Go away !! It finds Cancer cells as “foreign” cells that don’t belong in the body. Then the T cells attack with a pledge to destroy the cancerous cells.
Body keeps expecting this from the immunity department whereas the immunity department keeps watching the war.
When the cancer cells are killed, immunity sends a “checkpoint” in the immune system which works to stop the T cells from attacking. Checkpoint has been given the responsibility of protecting healthy cells.
But not always, sometimes cancer can outsmart the immune system too. In order to smartly dodge the T cells, the Cancer cells try to trick the immune system into thinking they’re healthy cells. Once they believe so, Cancer cells may activate the “checkpoint” process. This can make the immune system halt the attack on the cancer too very early.
Let us see how cancer immunotherapy works. It’s very simple. The process is also known as Immune checkpoint inhibition. This approach helps use drugs to halt the “checkpoint” process. Thus, the the T cells freely keep fighting cancer.
On the other hand, the Personalized Cell Therapy also works equally efficiently. In this process, the approach adapts the body’s own immune cells to develop them as better cancer fighters. There are two ways this is done.
Firstly, by increasing the number of immune system cells, then they get stronger and thus efficiently they overwhelm the cancer. Secondly, by changing the altering make-up of the immune cells. This can help the immune system target specific types of cancer.
One current type of personalized cell therapy being used is called CAR T cell therapy.
Cancer vaccines are also there. Medicine researchers are creating vaccines that may train the immune system to better recognize and strongly destroy cancer before it can take hold inside the body or come back to it.
