Immunotherapy for Cancer

Cancer is the most threatening disorder with increasing sufferers globally. The statistics of International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) indicate the arousal of 18.1 million new cancer cases causing 9.6 million deaths worldwide in the year 2018. Human body possesses a set of defensive processes carried out by the immune system whenever cancer is detected by its specialized cells. But when cancer escapes these processes, an anticancer therapy becomes the need. Three routes of treatment used widely today are Chemotherapy, Radiation therapy and Surgery. A new era in anticancer therapy is immunotherapy. It involves modification of patients own immune cells using biotechnology for treating cancer. There are various types of immunotherapies depending on the cells or cellular components modified and the molecules targeted in cancer cells. They include T cells, macrophages, specific receptors, proteins, chemical mediators and enzymes involved in immune response towards neoplasm. Hence immunotherapy is a much more specific and targeted therapy for cancer. A high therapeutic potential with minimum adverse effects and tumor specificity with no harm to normal body cells makes this therapy different than the pre existing ones. Immunotherapy will thus prove to be a major tool to combat all types of cancer.