Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy (or biological therapy) includes treatments that use natural or manmade substances to boost the body's natural mechanisms to fight cancer and to improve the immune system’s ability to fight cancer cells.

Types of immunotherapy used to treat cancer include:

• Cancer vaccines – substances put in the body to begin immune responses against certain diseases.
• General immunotherapies – general immune system boosters that help attack cancer cells by improving your immune system’s activity without targeting a particular tumor.
• Immune checkpoint inhibitors – help the immune system recognize and fight cancer cells.
• Monoclonal antibodies – versions of immune system proteins made by man and designed to attack a part of a cancer cell.

How does immunotherapy work against cancer?

It fuels your own immune system to attack cancer cells by working harder or smarter and adds components to your immune system like man-made proteins, to help fight cancer.

How is it administered?

Immunotherapy can be given through pill, IV, or injection, depending on the type of cancer you have and the specific immunotherapy you are receiving.