Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy therapy, a more recent approach to the treatment of cancer, holds considerable promise. It utilizes the body's immune system to fight the cancer and/or to protect it from some of the side effects of other treatments. Tumor cells from the patient are inactivated and then injected into a laboratory animal, where they stimulate the production of specific antibodies to the cancer. These antibodies are then removed from the animal and injected into the patient, in whom they make a beeline directly for the tumor, attacking it and sparing healthy tissue. These monoclonal (or sometimes polyclonal) antibodies can also be attached to chemotherapy drugs and other antitumor agents, which selectively search out the tumor. An exciting advance in this field is herceptin, a laboratory-designed monoclonal antibody. When given to women with breast cancer who have the HER2 gene (present in 30 percent of breast cancers), this agent targets and destroys the protein that make the cancer grow. Many new monoclonal antibodies are being developed. A new area of research is trying to wake up the body's immune system so that it can attack the cancer cells. Dendritic cells normally call the alarm, but somehow cancer can get around them. New research has shown that these special calls can be stimulated in the laboratory by mixing them with the cancer Antigens. The activated dendritic cells are then returned to the person and the immune system can often attack the cancer cells.

Biological therapy is also relatively new. Patients are given various natural substances such as interferon, interleukin 2, and several types of colony-stimulating factors, all of which enhance the body's own defenses.

New advances in the prevention and treatment of cancer are reported virtually every week. A novel approach currently being evaluated is the use of anti-angiogenic agents that destroy the blood supply of the tumor instead of attacking it directly. These drugs are now being evaluated in humans. In one study of twenty-four patients with various types of cancer, only one, a man with kidney cancer, showed significant shrinkage of his tumor after receiving one of these agents - the tumor decreased by 39 percent. In another study of thirty-three patients with advanced kidney cancer, only one showed partial shrinkage of the tumor. However, in four others, who continued the treatment for a full year, the cancer did not spread.

There has been an explosion of knowledge in the field of gene therapy. Several genes responsible for cancer of the breast, ovary, lung, and other organs have already been identified.

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