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A cancer diagnosis often results in any number of relatively nonspecific treatments, such as surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy, all of which can destroy healthy tissue along with the tumor. Seeking approaches that could successfully eradicate tumors while avoiding such collateral damage from aggressive therapy, researchers have developed a number of treatments targeted to specific types of tumors and, more recently, a handful of therapies aimed at modulating the body’s immune cells to more effectively fight its cancer. Mounting evidence suggests that such immunotherapies can effectively turn patients’ own immune systems against the very molecules that distinguish the tumor from normal cells, allowing the body’s T cells to serve as guided missiles that seek and destroy only the intended target.
Mounting evidence suggests that immunotherapies can ...
