Cellular Immunotherapy: Your New Hope Against Cancer

Cellular immunotherapy is a revolutionary advance in cancer treatment.

Immunotherapy is a treatment that uses certain parts of a person’s immune system to fight diseases like cancer. Certainly, this type of treatment works better for some types of cancer than others.

T-cell administration is to help a patient fight diseases like cancer. So, during cancer treatment, T cells are removed from the patient’s blood or tumor tissue. Large numbers of copies of these cells are then produced in the laboratory and returned to the patient to help the immune system fight the cancer.

Types of therapy:

There are two main types of T-cell transfer therapy: tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (or TIL) therapy and CAR T-cell therapy.

TIL therapy uses T cells called tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes that are found in the tumor. In fact, the main goal of this procedure is that lymphocytes that are inside or near the tumor are able to recognize tumor cells. Consequently, administering large numbers of lymphocytes that react better to the tumor can help overcome these obstacles.
CAR T-cell therapy, first the T cells are modified in the laboratory. In this way, a type of protein known as CAR is produced and delivered back to the body.

These CAR receptors allow T cells to bind to specific proteins on the surface of cancer cells. In this way, they allow them to improve their ability to attack them.

Types of cancer treated:

The cancers treated with these procedures would be the following:

Treatment of metastatic melanoma, because they cause a strong immune response and usually have many TILs. That is why the use of TIL therapy has been effective for some people with melanoma and produced promising results in other cancers.

Also, there were favorable results in the treatment of squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix and cholangiocarcinoma. However, this treatment is still experimental.

Treatment for breast cancer and brain cancer is in the experimental phase.

Symptoms of T-cell therapy:

CAR T-cells: Fever, nausea, rapid heartbeat, headache, rash, low blood pressure, and shortness of breath.
LIT therapy can cause capillary leak syndrome, which consists of multi-organ failure and cardiocirculatory shock.

Benefits of cellular immunotherapy:

It directly attacks cancer cells: thus, it minimizes damage to healthy tissues.
It can generate a long-term immune response.
It is tailored to each patient.
It has fewer serious side effects.

In general, cellular immunotherapy, despite its great advances, still faces some challenges such as high cost, some side effects. In addition, not all patients respond equally to treatment. However, this therapy has generated great expectations by offering new therapeutic options for patients with advanced cancers or cancers resistant to other treatments.