{"id":10367,"date":"2025-05-20T04:57:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T09:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/cancer\/?p=10367"},"modified":"2025-03-06T09:50:51","modified_gmt":"2025-03-06T15:50:51","slug":"how-does-the-immune-system-fight-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/cancer\/how-does-the-immune-system-fight-cancer\/","title":{"rendered":"How Does the Immune System Fight Cancer?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Immune System Fight Cancer<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Immunotherapy is an exciting area of cancer research that is changing the way we think about cancer treatment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Immunotherapy works by using the body\u2019s immune system to fight cancer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The immune system is a complex network of organs, tissues, and cells, and the substances they make.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">One of the purposes of the immune system is to rid the body of germs, such as bacteria, and abnormal cells, such as cancer cells.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Immunotherapy uses different ways to boost the immune system to do a better job of killing cancer cells.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Three types of immunotherapy are used to treat cancer:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">\u00b7 non-specific immune stimulation<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">\u00b7 T-cell transfer therapy<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">\u00b7 immune checkpoint inhibitors<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Non-specific immune stimulation is a type of immunotherapy that stimulates a patient\u2019s immune response in a general way.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">In non-specific immune stimulation, drugs or other substances are used to increase the overall immune response, which can help kill cancer cells.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">T-cell transfer therapy is another type of immunotherapy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">T cells are a type of immune cell and are powerful weapons the immune system uses to fight cancer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">For T-cell transfer therapy, T cells are taken from a patient and changed in the laboratory to make them better able to target the patient\u2019s cancer cells and kill them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Millions of copies of these especially changed T cells are then grown in the laboratory and given back to the patient to fight cancer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Immune checkpoint inhibitors are the third type of immunotherapy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Immune checkpoints on cell surfaces help control immune response.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Usually, immune checkpoints keep T cells inactive, which is in an \u201coff\u201d state until they are needed. This keeps the T cells from harming normal cells.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Cancer cells can take advantage of these checkpoints to switch T cells off. This keeps the cancer cells from being killed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Immune checkpoint inhibitors are drugs that block checkpoints. This frees the T cells to attack cancer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">These three types of immunotherapy are effective ways to treat cancer, but they don\u2019t work for every patient and can cause serious side effects.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Researchers supported by the National Cancer Institute are working to learn more about how the immune system works to fight cancer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">By studying this, researchers can learn how to improve immunotherapy for all patients.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Immunotherapy is an exciting area of cancer research that is changing the way we think about cancer treatment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Immunotherapy works by using the body&#8217;s immune system to fight cancer.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Immune System Fight Cancer Immunotherapy is an exciting area of cancer research that is changing the way we think about cancer treatment. Immunotherapy works by&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":{"title":"How Does the Immune System Fight Cancer? - Cancer","description":"Immune System Fight Cancer Immunotherapy is an exciting area of cancer research that is changing the way we think about cancer treatment. Immunotherapy works by"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancer","wpcat-2-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/cancer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/cancer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/cancer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/cancer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/cancer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/cancer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10367\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/cancer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/cancer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/cancer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}