Today's blog is about a project I did research on while in college. Immunotherapy.
Most of us know about the more common treatments for cancer. Chemotherapy and radiation are commonly used. Immunotherapy is common but not many people have heard about it. The issues with chemotherapy and radiation are numerous. For starters, chemo subjects all of the body's cells to a toxic regimen. Yes, the neoplastic (cancer) cells receives chemo to kill the cells but the other normal cells in the body receives chemo as well. This is why many cancer patients become ill from the treatment. Radiation is similar. Patients are subjected to high rays that kill other cells. So, what is left you say? Immunotherapy.
The treatment is simply remarkable. It's similar to training the body to recognize the cancer and kill the cancer off itself! Tumors have certain biomarkers (antigens) that leave them recognizable by physicians. I consider them great targets for immunotherapy. There are 2 kinds of this therapy: monoclonal antibody IT and radioactive antibody IT. Monoclonal antibody IT involves injecting antibodies with affinity to tumor markers (or antigens) into the patient. Once the anibodies attach, they have the ability to amount an immune response in which T cells and NK cells (immune cells that fight and battle infection in the body) can come along and kill these cells by endocytosis (engulfing), etc. Radioactive IT acts in a similar way in which antibodies conjugated with radioactive isotopes attach to tumor markers (antigens) and a dose of radioactive chemicals to the tumor. Both methods target the tumor directly and avoid affecting the other cells.
In my presentation, I talked about targeting MUC 1 antigen markers. While the idea was good (MUC 1 is a common tumor antigen), MUC 1 is found on other cells as well. So, my plan headed a little south there lol. But, those markers that are specific to certain cancers (ex. ETA in breast cancer) are great targets. Many of these therapies are being used today. Drugs such as Bevacizumab (IgG monoclonal antibody used in monoclonal IT) and Tositumomab (IgG antibody conjugated with the Iodine-131 radioactive isotope) have been deemed safe by the FDA.
So, you guys might be getting an information overload after all of that lol.
But something to remember is that there is always an alternative treatment. Sure, in most cases we might not have discovered it...but with any treatment in science (and anything in life) there is progress. And progress will help many individuals who suffer everyday. =)
Tell me this.....why is it that most people (or people I know of) go for chemo or radiation? It seems that your research promotes Immunotherapy as the best method but why don't people do it? Is it expensive or only used for specific illnesses?
ReplyDeleteGood question. IT is something that is used rarely (I think) because of the expense and the basis of the treatment itself. Antibodies are hard to come across. In order to obtain them, one must inject the antigen (specific to the antibody) and allow the organism to produce them. It would be difficult (in my opinion) to do this for every antigen. Plus, the antibodies being used are usually from animals such as rabbits or mice and you must make sure that the person does not have an allergic reaction to them. If the person has cancer that has metastisized (and most cancer victims do) it would be best to use chemo because you are dealing with a different tumor in a different area of the body. It would not make sense to bombard the person with so many different antibodies to get rid of the tumor. I endorse IT because it has the capabilities to rid the person of the cancerous tumor BEFORE it moves into other regions. Once it becomes a certain size and begins to break off and travel, it's harder for something like IT to treat. Furthermore, think of the fact that while we have cancer, our immune systems are unable to fight it...that sort of tells you how far IT can go because it is based on our immune system's response. If our body can't recognize or has a problem fighting the tumor without IT then with it, it can boosts it to a certain extent; also, the MUC 1 antigen marker I mentioned in the blog is a common antigen to many other tissues in the body...so our immune system may not recognize it for that reason as well.
ReplyDeleteLOL also Chemo ensures that the cells are killed (radiation too)...
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