Chaunie Brusie is a mom of five, a native Michigander and a registered nurse turned writer and editor. She specializes in health and medical writing. Her work has appeared everywhere from The New York Times to Glamour to Parents magazine.
Chaunie Brusie is a mom of five, a native Michigander and a registered nurse turned writer and editor. She specializes in health and medical writing. Her work has appeared everywhere from The New York Times to Glamour to Parents magazine.
The aggressive nature of melanoma makes it a difficult cancer to treat, but newer immunotherapy options harness the body's immune system to better recognize and destroy cancerous cells.Here’s what you need to know about immunotherapy for melanoma.Immunotherapy helps the body's immune system better recognize and fight off cancer cells. Immunotherapy can work in a few different ways for melanoma:immune checkpoint inhibitorsIn theory, the body's immune system can recognize and attack cancer cells to prevent their growth. But sometimes cancer cells can grow too quickly for the immune system to keep up with, or the cells can evenare proteins that can boost the immune system so it can better recognize and attack melanoma cells. Melanoma treatment uses lab-made versions of the protein, interleukin-2 . IL-2s are not used as often as they once were because they can have serious side effects and typically don’t work as well as immune checkpoint inhibitors.Immune checkpoint inhibitors are a targeted form of immunotherapy. A key way that immunotherapy works in melanoma is by "turning off" specific proteins in immune cells that stop the cells from attacking the cancer. In a healthy person, the immune system has built-in “checkpoints” that keep immune cells from destroying healthy cells. Unfortunately, melanoma cells use those checkpoints against the body and. Immune checkpoint inhibitors are medicines that “turn off” those specific checkpoints, allowing the immune cells to identify the melanoma and work to destroy it.: PD-1 inhibitors target an immune cell protein called PD-1. PD-1s normally function to stop immune cells from destroying other cells. Blocking PD-1s frees up those immune cells to better fight cancerous melanoma cells. PD-1 inhibitors are called pembrolizumab and nivolumab and are given as IV infusions. They can only be used for melanoma that has spread and can't be removed by surgery. They may also be used as a secondary treatment and preventive treatment to lower the risk of the cancer recurring.: PD-L1 inhibitors, atezolizumab , work the same way, by blocking the PD-L1 protein on immune cells that normally stop the cells from attacking. This type of immunotherapy can be used specifically for people who have metastasized melanoma with the BRAF gene mutation. It can be given through IV or injection.: This type of checkpoint inhibitor targets the CTLA-4 proteins, located on T-cells in the immune system. Used alone, CLTA-4 inhibitors are less effective and have more serious side effects than other immunotherapy medications, but may be given alongside a PD-1 inhibitor. Ipilimumab is given via IV infusion.LAG-3 inhibitors block the LAG-3 checkpoint protein. Relatlimab is typically given via infusion in combination with a PD-1 inhibitor called nivolumab. T cells are a specific type of immune cell that the body uses to fight cancer. When they move into a tumor, they are called tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes . TIL therapy is a newer cancer treatment that removes TILs from a tumor, multiplies them in a lab, and returns them to the body in the form of an infusion. TIL can be effective for advanced melanoma because the T cells taken from the cancer cellsViruses are notorious for their ability to hide from the immune system and attack healthy cells, so scientists have discovered a way to put that power to good use by altering viruses , also known as T-VEC, is an oncolytic virus that can be used to try to shrink tumors that can't be surgically removed. Currently, the primary purpose of oncolytic virus therapy in melanoma is to shrink tumor sizes, and some data show it may help increase survival rates. Many of the immunotherapy treatment options for melanoma can be used with each other, which offers more opportunity for effective treatment. Increased immunotherapy options have offered new hope for a very challenging type of cancer.
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