Immunotherapy: Helping Our Bodies Better Fight Cancer

This hot topic in gynecologic cancer research may bring across-the-board treatment success in 5-10 years

Immunotherapy is a phenomenal new tool in our armament of treatment options for patients. When immunotherapy has worked, I’ve seen it work as a homerun type effect.

Unfortunately, we see these drastic responses in only a small percentage of patients. I think the most exciting aspect of immunotherapy research will be how to get those homerun effects in all patients and in all cancers, including the gynecologic cancers we treat.

Immunotherapy works by adding components into a cancer patient’s body that are designed to stimulate the immune system’s ability to attack cancer cells. The immune system fights bacteria and infection well, but it is programed to stop short of attacking its own cells, even cancer cells. Immunotherapy kind of tricks it into pressing onward in that fight.

As of now, immunotherapy is used as an addition to conventional cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy and radiation. However, research is still in its infancy so it’s hard to say if immunotherapy will someday take the spot of cancer treatment completely, or if it will continue to be used as a secondary aid.

Understanding immunotherapy

The immune system is responsible for keeping track of all of the substances found in our bodies. When new substances are introduced that the immune system does not recognize, it attacks them. A properly functioning immune system should be able to respond to and destroy anything containing a foreign substance, including germs or cancer cells.

The problem is that cancer cells are sneaky. Sometimes the immune system does not see them as foreign because they are not different enough from healthy cells. Other times the immune system recognizes the cancer cells, but is not strong enough to destroy them. And sometimes cancer cells themselves even give off substances that keep the immune system in check, so the cells are completely overlooked.

That’s where immunotherapy comes in. It is designed to strengthen a patient’s immune system and give it the amour that it needs to identify and fight off cancer cells. This can be done in several ways.

Cancer vaccines

A cancer vaccine works just like the flu vaccine, or any other common vaccine that you’ve had. Vaccines are usually given to healthy people in order to prevent infections, but they can also be used to help prevent or even treat cancer by introducing minute portions of it into the body.

One of the most common cancer vaccines to date is the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. This may come as a bit of a surprise since HPV itself is not a form of cancer, but rather a sexually transmitted infection (STI). The reason that the HPV vaccine is considered to be a cancer vaccine is because HPV can lead to one of the most common forms of gynecologic cancer, cervical cancer.

Monoclonal antibodies

These man-made antibodies are versions of the proteins present in the immune system. They can be engineered to attack a very specific part of a cancer cell or tumor, which enhances precision and promotes effectiveness.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors

I’ll spare you the long, scientific explanation, but basically these drugs open the “gates” of the immune system. This process helps the immune system turn back “on” when the cancer cells have tricked it to turn “off.”

Gynecologic cancer challenges for immunotherapy

So far, immunotherapy has had the greatest success in immune responsive cancers such as melanoma (skin cancer). Unfortunately, we have yet to see these high response rates in all cancer types across the board.

When it comes to gynecologic cancers specifically, I see three main challenges interfering with successful progress of immunotherapy treatment.

1. Since using immunotherapy is still in the developmental stages, the majority of immunotherapy for gynecologic cancers is only available in clinical trials. I encourage all patients to consider clinical trials, especially when immunotherapy agents are involved. But many factors (age, stage of cancer, treatment location) can interfere with eligibility.

2. Current trials have shown responses in ovarian, cervical, and uterine cancers using a variation of immunotherapy techniques combined with traditional cancer treatment options. However, we have not seen success on a large enough scale to replace existing therapies. This brings me to my next point…

3. Right now immunotherapy is a hot area of research in gynecologic cancers because of the encouraging results we have been seeing for certain types of cancers. Hopefully within the next 5-10 years we will begin to see an increase in immunotherapy success in gynecologic cancers across the board. The only problem is that effective research takes time, funding, collaboration and most of all, patients. Unfortunately, these resources are not always readily available, which can interfere with consistent research progress.

Only time will tell

As I mentioned before, it’s still too early in the developmental stages to know the direction that immunotherapy will go. However, I do expect to see progress in the next several years, assuming that research and clinical trials continue to show positive results.

Until then, I’m going to remain hopeful and participate in as many ground-breaking research projects as I can. Who knows, maybe in a few years I’ll be writing another blog confirming that our own bodies have contributed to the long awaited cure for cancer.