Immunotherapy is the “treatment of disease by inducing, enhancing, or suppressing an immune response. Some types of immunotherapy are also called as biologic therapy or biotherapy. Some immunotherapies designed to enhance an immune response are called as activation immunotherapies, while immunotherapies that suppress are called as suppression immunotherapies.
Activation immunotherapy includes, Autologous dendritic cell-based immunotherapy, T-cell adoptive transfer, Autologous immune enhancement therapy, Genetically engineered T cells, Immune recovery, Vaccination.
Suppression immunotherapy includes Immunosuppressive drugs, Immune tolerance and Allergies.
There are some common types of immunotherapies, they are:
(i) Monoclonal antibodies: These are man-made versions of immune system proteins. Antibodies can be useful in treating cancer because they can be designed to attack a very specific part of a cancer cell.
(ii) Non-specific immunotherapies: These treatments stimulate the immune system in a general way to increase activity against cancer cells. Some examples include man-made versions of cytokines, chemicals in immune cells, such as interleukins, Colony Stimulating Factors and interferons.
(iii) Cancer vaccines: Vaccines are substances designed to trigger an immune response in the body against certain diseases.
Immunotherapy may be given in different ways like intravenous, topical, oral and intravesical
Immunotherapy can cause variety of side effects like, nausea, fatigue, diarrhea, mouth sores, high blood pressure and fluid buildup, usually in the legs. Breast cancer patients, in particular may experience fever, chills, pain, weakness, vomiting, headaches and rashes. After the first treatment, the side effects of immunotherapy generally become less severe.
The potential use of immunotherapy is to restore the immune system of patients with immune deficiencies as result of infection or chemotherapy.
Immunotherapy is not yet as widely used as chemotherapy, surgery and radiation therapy. However, immunotherapies have been approved to treat people with many types of cancer. Many other immunotherapies are being studied in clinical trials.