Does Immunotherapy Work For Bile Duct Cancer

October 29 2015 by nci staff.

Does immunotherapy work for bile duct cancer. Immunotherapy is the use of medicines to help a person s immune system better recognize and destroy cancer cells. A patient with metastatic bile duct cancer treated with immunotherapy using her own mutation specific t cells has experienced regression of her metastatic lung and liver tumors that is ongoing for more than 2 years. There are not yet any fda approved immunotherapies for bile duct cancer but researchers are actively conducting clinical trials. Chemotherapy chemo is treatment with cancer killing drugs that are usually given into a vein iv or taken by mouth.

Symptoms often go undetected until the disease is far advanced. Study tests combination immunotherapy in advanced bile duct cancer. National cancer institute steve rosenberg m d. Many of these drugs are being tested in clinical trials to see if they might help treat bile duct cancer.

It can be used to treat some advanced bile duct cancers that cannot be removed by surgery or have spread to distant areas after at least one previous chemotherapy treatment. Learn more about cancer immunotherapy. Immunotherapy is a new cancer treatment approach that uses drugs vaccines and other therapies to activate the immune system s natural defenses so it can fight cancer. Pemigatinib pemazyre a fgfr2 inhibitor blocks the abnormal fgfr2 protein in bile duct cancer cells and keeps them from growing and spreading to other places.

Immunotherapy for bile duct cancer. These drugs enter the bloodstream and reach all areas of the body making this treatment useful for some cancers that have spread to organs beyond the bile duct.