The immune system is the body’s natural defense against disease. It fights off infections and helps you heal from injuries. But when your immune system weakens, you’re more likely to get sick or develop cancer. Immunotherapy is a treatment that uses your body’s ability to fight cancer.
If you want immunotherapy cancer treatment in Chennai, you can get the treatment from any cancer treatment hospital there. This article explains how immunotherapy works for advanced lung cancer patients and if it might be right for you.
Immunotherapy is a promising treatment for advanced lung cancer. If your doctor has told you that your lung cancer has spread, it’s important to understand what this means and how immunotherapy can help. Immunotherapy can treat lung cancer that has spread to other body parts.
There are different ways to give immunotherapy, including injections into the skin or under the skin; infusions through a vein (IV); inhaled medications through a nebulizer machine; or pills taken by mouth. Immunotherapy can also be given in combination with other treatments, such as chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
Two types of cancer immunotherapy
There are two main types of cancer immunotherapy:
- Checkpoint inhibitors: These drugs block the function of checkpoints, which are proteins that prevent immune cells from attacking tumors. For example, checkpoint inhibitors can stop PD-1 (programmed cell death protein 1) from signaling to T-cells to stop them from attacking tumors and keep them active longer than normal.
- CAR-T cell therapy: This type uses specially engineered T-cells reprogrammed to recognize cancer cells and destroy them before they grow large enough to cause symptoms or spread throughout your body. A sample of your blood is taken out and sent off for processing by a company; then, the altered cells are infused back into your body, attacking any remaining cancer cells in your body.
Which lung cancer patients can benefit from immunotherapy?
Immunotherapy is recommended for people with advanced lung cancer when other treatments aren’t working well. Immunotherapy can be used alone or in combination with other treatments.
In some cases, immunotherapy may be appropriate for people with stage 4 lung cancer who haven’t received any other treatments for their disease. This means you’re not expected to get better from treatment but rather do whatever you can to have the best quality of life possible. However, you should talk to your doctor about whether immunotherapy might work for you.
Not a cure but an extension
Immunotherapy is not a cure for advanced lung cancer but can extend your life by months to years. But even if immunotherapy doesn’t help you live longer, it may improve your quality of life (QOL) by helping relieve symptoms such as pain or shortness of breath.
Immunotherapy is an active treatment that uses medications that boost your body’s natural defenses against cancer cells by targeting their specific weaknesses to destroy them or keep them from growing and spreading in the body.
Conclusion
Lung cancer is a serious disease that can cause death. However, immunotherapy is an emerging treatment option for patients with advanced lung cancer. This treatment uses the body’s own immune system to fight the tumor cells.
When you visit a cancer treatment hospital in Chennai, you must talk to your doctor about whether this therapy could be right for you because of its risks, side effects, and cost-effectiveness over time.