(Cancer Treatment) Immunotherapy

• April 13, 2020
• Reading time: 3 minutes

"Using immunotherapy to treat patients, watching them recover from critical condition to health — nothing makes me happier," said Tasuku Honjo, special professor at Kyoto University's Institute for Advanced Study.

Cancer, claiming millions of lives over nearly half a century, becomes a treatable disease under immunotherapy rather than a terminal disease; cancer no longer equals death. In the future, cancer will become a chronic disease like diabetes and heart disease.

Traditional cancer treatments — surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation — aim to eliminate tumor cells externally. Immunotherapy uses the body's innate immune system to attack tumor cells. This major breakthrough in cancer treatment extends survival and even cures many previously untreatable cancer patients.

What Is Immunity?

Immunity refers to the physiological system that identifies self substances (self cells) versus foreign substances (non-self foreign matter) and eliminates foreign matter. Cancer is the uncontrolled growth of healthy cells caused by DNA damage, producing malignant substances. The immune system recognizes cancerous cells as foreign.

Immune cells that clear cancer include natural killer (NK) cells, natural killer T (NKT) cells, and killer T cells (cytotoxic T lymphocytes, also called CTLs). The most evolved are killer T cells. T cells differ from other immune cells in their learning ability. Killer T cells can mark cancer cells, producing a "cancer antigen" response and inducing powerful anti-cancer action.

What Is Immunotherapy?

"Cancer immunotherapy" strengthens the immune response to treat cancer. Immune-related cells — besides NK, NKT, and killer T cells — include macrophages, helper T cells, and B cells. Any method that activates these cells to achieve treatment goals qualifies as "cancer immunotherapy." It can be divided into antigen-nonspecific and antigen-specific cancer immunotherapy. Cancer peptide vaccine therapy that increases and activates killer T cells to prevent cancer recurrence or proliferation is a form of specific immunotherapy.

Currently, two main classes of immunotherapy exist: cellular immunotherapy (immune cell therapy) and molecular immunotherapy (immune drug therapy). Japan's experience and medical technology level in cellular immunotherapy implementation are high, making it a primary choice for many patients.

Immune Cell Therapy

Immune cell therapy broadly divides into two types: nonspecific immune cell therapy, which activates immune cells without requiring recognition of cancer cell characteristics, and specific immune cell therapy, which allows immune cells to specifically recognize cancer cells. Both involve NK, dendritic cells (DC), T cells, or B cells.

Recent research has shown that αβ T cells and γδ T cells can be separated. Most blood T lymphocytes are αβ T cells, with γδ receptor-bearing T cells comprising a few percent. Previously, T cells without antigen information transmission were thought to lack cancer-cell attack ability; however, it has been verified that γδ T cells can attack tumors like NK cells even without dendritic cell instruction. An increasing number of institutions now practice this therapy.

Electrical Field Therapy (ECCT): Cancer Supportive Treatment in Japan

Electrical field therapy fundamentally does not affect normal cells because tumor cells' electrical properties (conductivity, capacitance) differ from normal cells. Tumor cells have relatively higher electrical properties and are therefore more sensitive to external electrical fields. Compared to chemotherapy, electrical field therapy has minimal side effects with no major reported adverse events.

The duration of electrical field therapy requires physician judgment through follow-up observation to determine continued use.

We recommend sufficient intake of albumin, vitamin C, flavonoids, and olive oil to help the immune system function normally.

Electrical field therapy technology was developed by Professor Warsito P. Taruno and the CTech Laboratory team at Edward Technology Company (IDN Patent No. REGP00201200092, 2012).

Related articles:

• (Electrical Field Therapy) High-Tech Anti-Cancer New Option?
• (Electrical Field Therapy) Stop Cancer Metastasis New Weapon?
• (Electrical Field Therapy) Cancer Supportive Treatment at Home

• Immunotherapy

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