Our natural defense
Our natural defense against disease is called the “immune system”. It works silently in our body, around the clock, to protect us and keep us healthy.
This immune system works by detecting and destroying a wide range of germs and viruses that try to invade our body every day. It recognizes these germs that could harm us because they do not come from the body - they are “foreign”. It then kills them and stops the disease.
The immune system fights cancer too
Our natural immune system can also detect cancer, because cancer cells are not totally like normal cells. In many cases, it will destroy these cancer cells before they turn into a detectable cancer.
But sometimes our immune response to cancer fails and the cancer continues to grow. Not only can the immune response be insufficient, but cancer cells may cheat the immune system as well.
This can happen when cancer cells are not recognized by the immune system or develop ways to escape detection by it. As a result, our immune system mistakes them for healthy cells and does not react.
Cancer immunotherapy is a potential novel form of treatment that improves the way our immune system fights cancer. It aims to teach our natural defense to identify the cancer cells correctly – and then kill them.
