When we get sick, our bodies jump into action. We have natural defenses that make up our immune system.
Now doctors are using that defense system to ramp up the fight against cancer. It’s called immunotherapy. Dr. Feras Abdul-Khalek is a hematologist and medical oncologist with Peninsula Regional Medical Center and joins us to talk about cancer immunotherapy and how it’s being used right here on Delmarva.
Dr. Abdul-Khalek says immunotherapy is when our body uses our own immune system to fight off cancer cells in the body. He says it was used starting in the 1980’s for melanoma.
Dr. Abdul-Khalek says they have learned a lot since then about our immune system and cancer cells.
“Cancer cells are smart and they know how to hide from our immune system. So these immune cells, which are patrolling our body, they know that the cancer is there, but they just can’t see it,” Dr. Abdul-Khalek says. “This immunotherapy is a medication that – it’s as if the cancer has an invisible cloak on it and this medication removes this clock. It allow the immune system to see these cancer cells and do what it is supposed to do and kill anything foreign in the body.”
It is currently being used for melanoma, kidney cancer, head and neck cancers, as well as lung and bladder cancer.
