20 Facts You Should Know About Immunotherapy Treatment

FACT #8:Cancer can exhaust immune cells. Checkpoint immunotherapies can wake them back up.

Sometimes, the immune system can be held back from attacking cancer, even though it has the natural ability to do so. Immune checkpoint pathways can put the brakes on anti-cancer immune cells, making them less effective against cancer. To counter this, scientists have created checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapies. These therapies block these pathways, giving a boost to the immune cells and reinvigorating their ability to fight cancer. They work particularly well against heavily mutated tumors that the immune system has already recognized.

James P. Allison, Ph.D., was the first to identify an immune checkpoint pathway called CTLA-4 receptor. His discovery led to the development of ipilimumab, an anti-CTLA-4 checkpoint immunotherapy approved by the FDA in 2011 for melanoma. Since then, more checkpoint pathways, like the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway, have been discovered, leading to the development of additional immunotherapies. Currently, there are six FDA-approved checkpoint immunotherapies, including ipilimumab and nivolumab (used together for melanoma), pembrolizumab (for advanced lung cancer), and atezolizumab (for advanced bladder cancer in certain cases).