Cancer immunotherapy

Patent Granted Cancer immunotherapy is the use of the immune system to treat cancer. There are three main groups of immunotherapy used to treat cancer: cell-based therapies, antibody therapies and cytokine therapies. They all exploit the fact that cancer cells often have subtly different molecules on their surface that can be detected by the immune system. These molecules, known as cancer antigens, are most commonly proteins but also include other molecules such as carbohydrates. Immunotherapy is used to provoke the immune system into attacking the tumor cells by using these cancer antigens as targets.