Cancer immunotherapy in Israel is a innovative treatment that involves human immune system to kill cancer cells. This is a type of treatment that in some cases replaces chemotherapy.
Immunotherapy may be used as an adjuvant therapy as well as for metastatic cancer treatment advanced stages.
Immunotherapy of cancer is a more gentle method, because it has much fewer side effects, or sometimes do not have at all (individually for each patient).
Immunotherapy allows the immune system to identify and target the cancer cells, which makes it a universal response to cancer.
Israeli oncologists are very optimistic about immunotherapy, considering it a promising direction that can change the lives of people with cancer.
HOW DOES IMMUNOTHERAPY WORK AND WHAT IS ITS UNIQUENESS?
Cancer immunotherapy is unique because it uses the strength of human’s own immune system to treat cancer.
Immunotherapy works in two ways:
1. Stimulates the immune system to make it work more aggressively or “smarter” to kill cancer cells.
2. Strengthens the immune response by providing the body with additional proteins of the immune system.
Immunotherapy can be used both separately and with other types of treatment. It depends on the type of cancer, as well as on the genome of a particular person (personalized treatment or precision cancer treatment). Precision medicine allows to get the most effective treatment for different cancer types.
In order to define if immunotherapy fits certain patient and his tumor, our physicians perform molecular genetic analyses that help to find precision treatment for each patient.
WHAT TYPES OF CANCER CAN IMMUNOTHERAPY TREAT IN ISRAEL?
Currently, immunotherapy is used to treat almost all types of cancer, including those that are resistant to chemotherapy and radiation therapy:
Immunotherapy for bladder cancer
Immunotherapy for colon cancer
Immunotherapy for breast cancer
Immunotherapy for esophageal cancer
Immunotherapy for cervical cancer
Immunotherapy for brain cancer
Immunotherapy for lung cancer
Immunotherapy for head and neck cancer
Immunotherapy for kidney cancer
Immunotherapy for leukemia
Immunotherapy for ovarian cancer
Immunotherapy for melanoma
Immunotherapy for multiple myeloma
Immunotherapy for childhood cancer
Immunotherapy for prostate cancer
Immunotherapy for liver cancer
Immunotherapy for stomach cancer
Immunotherapy for pancreatic cancer
WHAT ARE THE SIDE EFFECTS OF IMMUNOTHERAPY?
Side effects of immunotherapy may differ from those observed with chemotherapy or radiotherapy. As immunoterapy drugs associated with stimulation of the immune system, they can vary from such minor symptoms as itching, rash, fever to more complicated conditions like autoimmune disorders, and in some very rare cases, more serious side effects.
These side effects differ in the type of cancer immunotherapy, and each patient can respond in a different way. It is very important to inform the doctor during immunotherapy treatment of any side effects, since many of them can be treated.
HOW DOES IMMUNOTHERAPY WORK AND WHAT IS ITS UNIQUENESS?
Immunotherapy can “train” the immune system to “remember” cancer cells. This causes longer remissions.
Clinical studies of long-term overall survival have shown that positive reactions to the treatment of cancer with immunotherapy are durable, that is, they can be maintained even after treatment is completed.
⇒ Cancer experts (oncologists) of Israel
