Immunotherapy had a breakthrough advancement this year that lead to Nobel Prize win. The discovery of check point inhibitors was crucial to discovering mechanisms that inhibit our own cells from attacking the tumor cells. Consequently, new immunotherapy treatments were developed to reverse that mechanism and allow our immune cells to attack the cancer cells.
Currently, 10 usually lethal cancer types are being successfully treated with immunotherapy including advanced melanoma, lung cancer and lymphoma. More than 20 cancer cell types have FDA approved immunotherapy treatments currently available in USA. The success though is still limited to a subset of patients for each cell type. The treatments could be given as an adjunct to traditional treatments, as main treatment or as sole treatment after failures of traditional therapies. The list of drugs approved by FDA keeps on growing. The oncologist should be able to direct the patients who benefit from these new drugs.
More research and treatments are being tested to deliver stronger more lasting therapies. Hundreds of clinical trials are underway for new cancer treatments. Specialists in the field expect that, by combining patients history, pathology records, patient’s immuno-profile and tumor genomics, successful treatment of all cancers should be attainable. Such therapies are expected to be widely available in the next 3-5 years.
If you have any questions regarding your cancer treatment, please feel free to contact https://myusadr.com/. Our expert adult and pediatric Oncologists Dr. Hepgur https://myusadr.com/profile/mehmet-hepgur-2 and Dr. Khatib https://myusadr.com/profile/ziad-khatib-md will be happy to help!
Soon, we hopefully will be able to outgrow cancer!