When we think of cancer and treatment I think it is normal to base our perception of what that will be based upon by what we know from our experience. Everyone has had a relative or a friend with some type of cancer. I grew up learning about cancer by watching my grandmother slowly die of cervical cancer in the 1960s. The treatments she received were both chemo and radiation, after a number of surgeries to remove cancers from her body. And, for many with cancer, those treatments are still used.
However, other investigative medical researchers have, over the past decades, been exploring other types of treatments and ways to combat the spread of cancer within the body, as well as help with other medical procedures, like transplants, that improve the individuals own immune system in the success of that treatment: that is the treatment program that I will be participating and it is called immunotherapy. Below is a quick reference guide to the differences between chemo and immunotherapies.
What is the difference between chemotherapy and immunotherapy?
By: Robin Geller
Chemotherapy is the use of drugs and other toxins to kill tumor cells.
Actually most of these compounds are designed as metabolic poisons to kill
any rapidly dividing cell, normal as well as cancerous. That is why
chemotherapy patients often lose their hair and have skin and digestive
problems during the course of treatment; hair, skin and gut epithelium are
all rapidly dividing cells.
Immunotherapy on the other hand, includes a variety of approaches designed
to augment or redirect the body's own immune system to destroy the tumor
cells. The immune system is extremely specific and when these approaches
work they are able to target just the tumor and not normal tissue.
However, most tumors have developed mechanisms to avoid detection by the
immune system so it often takes a great deal of effort to get immune cells
which can effectively identify and destroy the tumor cells. Drugs and
other compounds are used here,too, but they are designed to act on the
cells of the immune system in order to activate them, they do not act on
the tumor cells directly.
However, other investigative medical researchers have, over the past decades, been exploring other types of treatments and ways to combat the spread of cancer within the body, as well as help with other medical procedures, like transplants, that improve the individuals own immune system in the success of that treatment: that is the treatment program that I will be participating and it is called immunotherapy. Below is a quick reference guide to the differences between chemo and immunotherapies.
What is the difference between chemotherapy and immunotherapy?
By: Robin Geller
Chemotherapy is the use of drugs and other toxins to kill tumor cells.
Actually most of these compounds are designed as metabolic poisons to kill
any rapidly dividing cell, normal as well as cancerous. That is why
chemotherapy patients often lose their hair and have skin and digestive
problems during the course of treatment; hair, skin and gut epithelium are
all rapidly dividing cells.
Immunotherapy on the other hand, includes a variety of approaches designed
to augment or redirect the body's own immune system to destroy the tumor
cells. The immune system is extremely specific and when these approaches
work they are able to target just the tumor and not normal tissue.
However, most tumors have developed mechanisms to avoid detection by the
immune system so it often takes a great deal of effort to get immune cells
which can effectively identify and destroy the tumor cells. Drugs and
other compounds are used here,too, but they are designed to act on the
cells of the immune system in order to activate them, they do not act on
the tumor cells directly.
