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Immunotherapy is a biological therapy that changes how your immune system fights diseases, including cancer. These therapies use the power of your own immune cells to boost how your body detects and attacks cancer cells.
In recent years, immunotherapy has given people with cancer even more treatment options, and new immunotherapies continue to be developed, tested and approved at a rapid pace.
Your immune system works to fight diseases and infections in your body every day. It finds and destroys abnormal cells throughout your body, preventing or slowing the growth of many illnesses and conditions, including cancer.
But sometimes, cancer cells avoid detection and destruction by the immune system, allowing them to grow out of control. They may have genetic changes that let them hide from the immune system or interfere with the immune cells' ability to work as they should.
When this happens and your immune system is no longer able to effectively fight cancer cells on its own, immunotherapy treatment works to:
Many immunotherapy treatments can also be used in combination with chemotherapy, radiation, surgery or other targeted therapies to improve their effectiveness in preventing, managing or treating different cancers.
Several types of immunotherapies are used to treat cancer today, and they each work in different ways with your immune system. They may destroy cancer cells, slow the growth of cancer or keep it from spreading.
Because immunotherapies work in very specific ways in your body, immunotherapy for one type of cancer may not work on other types. Your care team will partner with you to decide if—and what kind of—immunotherapy might work in treating your cancer.
Your immune system has proteins called “checkpoints” that prevent it from overreacting. These immune checkpoints tell a type of white blood cell called T cells when to turn on and off, preventing them from destroying healthy cells.
Usually, T cells attack cancer cells. However, cancer cells also have immune checkpoints, which can turn off T cells. Immune checkpoint inhibitors stop this from happening, enabling T cells to recognize and destroy cancer cells.
Your care team may recommend checkpoint inhibitors for certain cancers that haven’t responded well to other treatments or have spread in the body. Some cancers treated with this type of immunotherapy include:
Adoptive cellular therapy is an immunotherapy that isolates and uses specific immune cells to fight cancer. It is also known as T-cell transfer therapy, adoptive immunotherapy or immune cell therapy. During these therapies, your care team multiplies or modifies immune cells in the lab and infuses them into your body to help your immune system work more effectively.
Different adoptive cellular therapies work in various cancer types. For example, CAR T-cell therapy is approved to treat blood cancer, while TIL therapy treats advanced melanoma.
Tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy
Tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy improves the ability of your own TIL cells to fight cancer. These immune cells constantly move through your body and look for abnormal cells. When activated, they go from your blood into a tumor to kill cancer cells. But sometimes, they don’t work as they should, or your body doesn’t have enough TIL cells to fight off cancer effectively.
To boost the ability of TIL cells in your body, these cells can be taken from your body and activated and multiplied in the lab. Then, millions of cancer-fighting TIL cells are infused back into your blood to boost your immune system’s ability to destroy cancer.
Currently, TIL therapy is only approved by the Food and Drug Administration for people with advanced melanoma.
Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy (CAR-T)
Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy (CAR-T) is a form of immunotherapy that uses T cells to fight cancer.
T cells naturally work in your body to find and attack cancer cells. To do this, they have proteins called receptors. These receptors bind to proteins called antigens on the surface of cancer cells to help your body destroy them. But sometimes, T cells can’t recognize the antigens on cancer cells.
To give your T cells the receptors they need, doctors take T cells from your blood, add a synthetic receptor called a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) in the lab, and multiply these modified T cells. The new CAR-T cells are then infused back into your body to target specific antigens on the surface of cancer cells.
CAR T-cell therapy is currently approved by the FDA to treat some types of blood cancer, including leukemia, lymphoma and multiple myeloma.
T cell receptor (TCR) therapy
Sometimes, T cells cannot recognize the cancer cells in your body. Like CAR-T therapy, T cell receptor (TCR) therapy modifies your own T cells to help them better identify and target cancer cells. But TCR therapy targets different antigens on cancer cells.
During TCR therapy, your T cells are modified and multiplied in the lab. Doctors can choose the specific target and type of T cell to change, allowing your team to make this therapy work for your cancer. TCR therapy is being studied in a range of cancer types, including blood cancers and solid tumors.
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) natural killer (NK) cell therapy
Most immunotherapies use the power of your T cells to fight cancer. But some therapies are being developed using other types of immune cells, including natural killer (NK) cells. NK cells look for and attack many types of abnormal cells in the body.
During chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) NK natural killer (NK) cell therapy, NK cells are multiplied or modified in the lab. Then, they are infused into your body, where they can better attack cancer cells. Unlike T cell therapies, NK cell therapy doesn’t require using your own cells.
Monoclonal antibodies are lab-made antibodies that help your body recognize cancerous or foreign cells. Your immune system naturally makes proteins called antibodies that stick to specific antigens in foreign cells and tell your body to attack them. Monoclonal antibodies are created to act like natural antibodies.
Different types of monoclonal antibodies work in different ways. They may help find a specific target in cancer cells, help the immune system respond in a certain way, restrict the blood supply to a tumor, or deliver chemicals or radiation directly to cancer cells.
There are dozens of types of monoclonal antibodies approved to treat many conditions, including cancers such as:
Cancer vaccines work in a few different ways to either prevent or treat cancer.
Cytokines are proteins that influence your immune system’s response when it detects foreign cells or cancer cells. They manage immune cell growth and help communicate between your immune cells, signaling that they need to attack and coordinate a response.
Several different types of cancer are treated with immunotherapy, such as blood cancer, melanoma, lung cancer, urologic cancers and more. But these therapies are often very specific to a particular cancer, so they may not be an option for every cancer type.
Usually, immunotherapy is used in advanced cancer or cancer that has come back. It may be a part of your treatment plan along with other options, such as chemotherapy or targeted therapy.
Cancers treated with immunotherapy include:
The success rate of any cancer treatment depends on many factors, such as cancer type and stage. In general, immunotherapy is considered effective across a wide variety of cancer types, especially when paired with another type of cancer treatment. About 25-50% of people respond to these treatments.
Research also suggests that immunotherapy helps the immune system remember how to attack cancer cells long after treatment.
Like other cancer treatments, immunotherapy may cause side effects—ranging from minor to severe. Before you have immunotherapy treatment, your care team will talk to you about specific side effects based on your cancer type, health history and immunotherapy type.
Often, you can manage minor side effects with the help of your team, and these side effects resolve on their own after treatment. If you’re experiencing side effects or unusual symptoms during or after immunotherapy, let your doctor know right away. Your doctors will need to monitor you throughout treatment and adjust or stop your immunotherapy as needed.
Some immunotherapy side effects include:
With our cancer experts on your team, finding comprehensive immunotherapy for cancer doesn’t have to feel complicated. Baylor Scott & White Health is the nation’s third-largest network of cancer centers accredited by the Commission on Cancer.
The Charles A. Sammons Cancer Center at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, part of Baylor Scott & White Health, is a destination center for immune therapy in cancer care, offering individuals access to clinical trials and advanced treatment options that utilize these living drugs to treat the most complex forms of cancer.
Pioneering research and treatment in immunotherapies, Baylor University Medical Center was one of the first North Texas providers to offer adult commercial use of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, or CAR-T, to treat patients with large B-cell lymphoma and acute lymphoblastic leukemia. It was also one of the first in the nation to become an authorized center for tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy to treat advanced melanoma.
The innovative therapies combined with the comprehensive cancer care at the Baylor Scott & White Charles A. Sammons Cancer Center – Dallas provide a single destination of cancer care to make your journey of healing easier.
We continue to research and advance numerous other immunotherapies every day. And that means access to clinical trials you won’t find elsewhere.
You have access to multiple cancer care centers in Texas, including centers specializing in immunotherapy and research centers. Get started by finding an immunotherapy location near you.
3410 Worth St , Dallas, TX, 75246
3410 Worth St , Dallas, TX, 75246
Accepting walk-ins
2401 S 31st St , Temple, TX, 76508
2401 S 31st St , Temple, TX, 76508
Not accepting walk-ins
