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Unveiling New Frontiers in Cancer Treatment: Exploring Immunotherapy

ByHolly Zink
Unveiling New Frontiers in Cancer Treatment: Exploring Immunotherapy

Doctors have found new ways to fight cancer that use our body’s natural defenses. These new treatments are exploring immunotherapy. They help our immune system, which is like our body’s defense team, to fight cancers like mesothelioma.

Understanding Special Proteins

In our bodies, there are proteins called checkpoints. They help our immune system know when to attack harmful cells like cancer and when to leave healthy cells alone. But sometimes, cancer tricks these checkpoints and hides from our immune system.

Scientists made special medicines called immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). These medicines help our immune system work better against cancers like mesothelioma. They stop the tricks that cancer uses to hide from our body’s defenses.

Finding New Helpers

Even though these medicines are helpful, not everyone’s body reacts the same way. Scientists are looking for new checkpoints in our body that could help fight cancer better. They found some new ones like NKG2A, TIGIT, B7-H6, Galectin-3, and TIM-3. These could be important in helping our body fight cancer in new ways.

Using these medicines has been great progress, but there are still challenges. Some people don’t respond well to these medicines. But finding these new checkpoints gives hope for better treatments in the future.

Doctors are trying these new medicines in different ways to help patients with different types of cancers, including mesothelioma. Combining these medicines with other treatments is also making a big difference for people fighting cancer.

Doctors are learning a lot about how our body’s defenses can fight cancer. These new discoveries about checkpoints are making treatment better. Even though there are challenges, scientists are hopeful that these discoveries will help more people beat cancer in the future.

Source:

Patwekar, Mohsina, Nouroz Sehar, Faheem Patwekar, Anuradha Medikeri, Shafat Ali, Rana M Aldossri, and Muneeb U Rehman. “Novel Immune Checkpoint Targets: A Promising Therapy for Cancer Treatments.” International Immunopharmacology 126 (January 5, 2024): 111186. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intimp.2023.111186.

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