In a perfect world, our immune system would work seamlesslyable to sense and recognize infectious organisms and foreign invaders (called antigens) and fight off disease with powerful and protective antibodies. But sometimes, it malfunctions.

Enter immunotherapy.

Although immunotherapy is a relatively new therapy, the medical establishment has been working to mobilize the immune system to fight disease for years, says Dale Shepard, M.D., a medical oncologist at Cleveland Clinic. In fact, William B. Coley, M.D. (now called the Father of Immunology) experimented with it back in the late 1800s when he was frustrated with surgerys failure to treat a patient with cancer. Coley injected his patient with bacteriaand it worked. The discoveries of chemotherapy and radiation overshadowed Coleys finding, and it would be years before immunotherapy reemerged as a respected and effective way to treat many cancers.

Also known as biologic therapy or immune-oncology, immunotherapy is a triple-whammy treatment: It trains the immune system to seek out and attack certain cancer cells, it boosts immune cells to eliminate cancer and it boosts the bodys immune response. And, unlike chemotherapy, which is unable to distinguish between healthy cells and cancer cells, this revolutionary treatment spares healthy cells.

Although immunotherapy can be a powerful foe against cancer, it cant treat every single type of cancer (there are more than 100), nor is it for everyone, says Shepard. Though used for more than 20 cancer types, most commonly, we use it for head and neck cancers, melanoma, lymphoma, bladder, kidney and some lung cancers, he says.

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One of the most famous people who has benefitted from immunotherapy is former president Jimmy Carter. Diagnosed in 2015 with metastatic melanoma that had spread to his brain and liver, Carter was treated with surgery and radiation and given an immunotherapy drug that had been approved for advanced melanoma by the FDA just the year before.

Carter, then 91 years old, was declared cancer-free just four months after his surgery, radiation and immunotherapy treatments. Experts feel confident that his immune system will continue to protect him against his cancer.

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Given by injection in a doctors office, the immunotherapy drug Carter took is also used for small cell lung cancer, head and neck cancers, Hodgkin lymphoma, advanced stomach cancer and various other types. This year, it was approved to treat inoperable triple-negative breast cancer, for which chemotherapy had been the only treatment option.

Research continues to expand the number of people who can benefit from immunotherapy, and the future looks promising, says Shepard. Immunotherapy has opened up treatment options for a lot of people who didnt have them in the past.

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Scientists are working hard in the fight against COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2), the greatest global public health crisis many of us have ever witnessed. Vaccines are a form of immunotherapy too, and the race is on to find potential treatments and a vaccine for the virus.

We need to understand the basic mechanisms of how the virus interacts with our immune system, says Thaddeus Stappenbeck, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Department of Inflammation and Immunity at Cleveland Clinics Lerner Research Institute. The good news is that immunologists from around the world are developing tools to uncover this vital information. The Father of Immunology would be very proud.

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What Is Immunotherapy? How It Works, What Types of Cancer It Treats - Parade