Boosting the immune response to cancer

Cancer immunotherapy is a potential new approach for treating cancer using our own immune system to fight the disease. Although it grew out of the idea of cancer vaccines , most people think of vaccines as tools to prevent disease, rather than treat it. So the term “immunotherapy” is used instead.

To attack cancer cells, our immune system has to recognize something on the cells that makes them different from normal, non-cancerous cells. These substances on the surface of cancer cells are called “cancer antigens”. Cancer antigens can be particular to cancer cells (cancer-specific). Or they may just be different from antigens on normal cells, or be more numerous in cancer cells than in normal cells.

To make cancer immunotherapy work more effectively, the immune system reaction triggered by the antigen must be boosted, to make it strong enough to detect and destroy cancer cells.

This may be achieved by combining the antigen with a substance called an Adjuvant System. Recent discoveries have shown that particular Adjuvant Systems can be used to regulate and re-activate our immune system. The “antigen-Adjuvant System” combination may potentially produce a more effective immune response to cancer than previous immunotherapy approaches to cancer treatment.