“It’s so easy, I feel like I’m getting away with something.” That’s how Nella Smolinksi describes the last three years of treatment with an immunotherapy drug to control her rare form of Hodgkin lymphoma.
Immunotherapy
Learn how the side effects of immunotherapy may differ from those of chemotherapy.
"It’s the potential to provide simple and effective methods to protect against disease and cancer. That’s what has always been very important to me.”
Learning the difference between chemotherapy, immunotherapy and targeted therapy
Patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) that did not respond to treatment or that came back after two previous treatments had few remaining options — until now.
In 2006, Shinya Yamanaka, a Japanese stem cell researcher, made a groundbreaking discovery that would win him the Nobel Prize. Yamanaka discovered a new way to turn adult, dividing cells into pluripotent stem cells.
Dr. Lee says hopes are high for the success of immunotherapies targeting multiple myeloma: “I think we’re seeing a major change in the way we take care of the disease.”
What can be done when cancer is able to hide from your immune system or block the immune response, or if it just isn’t strong enough to kill all the cancer cells?
Dr. Odunsi and his colleagues observed that the tumors of some patients were full of T cells that had managed to work their way inside the tumor. When there were many of these T cells, the patients tended to live longer.
A combination of two immunotherapy drugs shows promise in treating patients with skin cancer that has spread to the brain, according to a study published this week the New England Journal of Medicine.
Not all patients respond to all types of immunotherapies. So how can doctors identify which treatments have the best chance of working in a specific patient? How can they quickly zero in on the best options on a list of immunotherapies that grows longer every day?
Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers have made another step toward personalizing cancer treatment while reducing the toxicity of certain cancer drugs using simple, noninvasive blood tests.