Enhancing Immunotherapy: The Race to Make “Cold” Tumors “Hot”
A growing arsenal of new drugs that unleash the body’s immune system against tumors has captured the cancer treatment spotlight.
A growing arsenal of new drugs that unleash the body’s immune system against tumors has captured the cancer treatment spotlight.
Radioimmunotherapy is a combination of radiation therapy and immunotherapy.
In gynecologic cancers, immunotherapy is being used in all stages of treatment, and researchers are trying to enhance the effects of different immunotherapy approaches.
Researchers are confident that the potential of checkpoint inhibitors has only begun to be tapped.
Immunotherapy can be dramatically successful for people with limited options — so scientists are working on expanding the benefits to other patients.
Researchers are applying the knowledge they’ve gained in previous clinical trials as they look into how immunotherapy might provide additional treatment options for patients with recurrent cervical cancer.
Immunotherapy is a kind of treatment that has had stunning results in some patients with cancers like melanoma, lymphoma, and kidney cancer. Immunotherapy drugs empower the body’s immune system by enabling the body to fight cancer — an approach that can slow or halt cancer in certain patients. In our latest podcast series, The Science … Read more
Precision medicine and immunotherapy are changing the landscape of cancer treatment. The aim of precision medicine, sometimes called personalized medicine, is to match treatments to individual patients taking into account their genetic makeup, medical history, test results, and other distinctive characteristics. Unlike precision medicine, immunotherapy is a particular form of treatment, aimed at manipulating the patient’s … Read more
It’s not uncommon for cancer patients to take to a pen after a diagnosis. Peter Rooney’s taken that to another level. Rooney, a former journalist and author of the book Die Free, captured his cancer journey in the new book Immunopatient: The New Frontier of Curing Cancer. The following excerpt is reprinted with permission from Immunopatient by … Read more
The approval of a targeted therapy and an immunotherapy drug for some patients with advanced stomach cancer reflects recent new approaches to this difficult-to-treat cancer that hasn’t had many therapeutic advances in recent years. Stomach cancer, uncommon in the United States but a leading cause of cancer death globally, causes few definitive symptoms in early … Read more
Small cell lung cancer is the most aggressive type of lung cancer. Unlike its far more common counterpart, non-small cell lung cancer, treatment with immunotherapy drugs hasn’t yet been approved for small cell lung cancer, but some early findings in clinical trials suggest this type of treatment may have potential. Small cell lung cancer gets … Read more
This originally appeared on Vector, Boston Children’s Hospital’s blog. A novel screening method using CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing technology has revealed new drug targets that could potentially enhance the effectiveness of PD-1 checkpoint inhibitors, a promising new class of cancer immunotherapy. The method, developed by a team at Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, uses … Read more
Immunotherapy refers to treatments that use the body’s own immune system to combat diseases. While immunotherapy hasn’t yet had as big an impact on the treatment of breast cancer as it has on some other cancers, scientists agree on its potential to improve outcomes for many patients with breast malignancies. Who can be treated with … Read more
Vaccines, drugs, and modified human cells that activate the immune system against cancer have improved outcomes and prolonged lives in some types of cancer in the past few years. For patients with glioblastoma, the most common primary brain tumor in adults, immunotherapy has shown some promise in clinical trials — but it can’t yet be … Read more
Efforts are under way to develop and test new immunotherapy approaches for prostate cancer.
Immunotherapy is an approach to treatment that harnesses the body’s immune system to fight cancer and other diseases. It is used to treat a growing array of cancer types, often with striking success. Lymphoma is a form of cancer that occurs when white blood cells known as lymphocytes grow abnormally. There are now close to … Read more
By Ursula Matulonis, MD, Chief, Division of Gynecologic Oncology Immunotherapy, which has revolutionized the treatment of many types of cancer, is undergoing extensive study in patients with ovarian cancer. Although much of this research is in the early stages, it has produced some intriguing findings about the promise of this approach to treatment. Clinical trials … Read more
It’s a compelling idea that has attracted scientists for decades: rather than poison tumors with chemicals and radiation, use a biological agent – a vaccine – to rally the body’s formidable immune defenders to kill cancer cells and shrink tumors. Yet, even as other forms of immunotherapy are showing promise against some cancers, efforts to … Read more
Cancers of the colon and rectum haven’t yet been as effectively treated with immunotherapy as have melanoma and lung cancer, but researchers are increasingly identifying patients who do appear to benefit from the immunity-boosting drugs – and devising strategies they hope will expand the reach of immunotherapy in colorectal cancers. Read More: Can Coffee Affect … Read more
There has been much excitement in recent years around new drugs that exploit the power of the body’s immune system to fight cancer. In some patients, even with advanced cancers, these immunotherapy treatments have slowed or halted the disease after standard treatments no longer worked, with remissions lasting several years and patients experiencing less severe … Read more