Checkpoint Inhibitors: Taking the Brakes Off the Immune System

Checkpoint inhibitors are a very promising avenue for treating cancer. Imagine the immune system is a car, complete with brake and accelerator pedals, telling it when to move forward and attack, and when to stay still. Checkpoint inhibitors disengage the immune system’s brakes, allowing it to attack the cancer cells at full speed. Already approved to treat melanoma and certain lung cancers, therapies like Yervoy (ipilimumab), Keytruda (pembrolizumab), Opdivo (nivolumab), and others may have applications in dozens of additional cancer types.

[edwardhaughney]

This is as informative as a 2 minute video can get.  Thank you.

[mariawilde]

Great explanation, so understandable with the schematics, and the analogy of brakes and pedals. Thank you!

[triplekings]

How can I help, other than donating? I take this kind of thing very seriously, I am 13, and I have studied things very closely related to this for the past 3 years. I WANT TO HELP.

[winstonyap]

How long should the treatment with checkpoint inhibitors take?
I am a layman and I think that one course of treatment should suffice because the T cells in the immune system is supposed to be able to keep an imprint of the mutant cancer cells in its memory and continue with its work of eradicating them without further treatment.
I also understand that some immunotherapy like CAR-T treatment can have life threatening side effects because the T cells are taken from the body and have their power boosted before being infused back into the body.
However, other immunotherapy methods are more benign.

[hortonharry]

An interesting facet of the cancer disappearance is the fact that the immune system is an adaptive agent in the body as well as an attack system. Evidently the immune system adapts to the presence of the tumors and does not attack the tumors. One possible additional advantage the drug dostarlimab could possess is that its blocking of PD-1 and PDL-1 could also disable some internal functions of the tumor cell, such functions significant in that the tumor cell's survival is dependent on such significant functions. That is if significant internal functions are disabled and rendered incapacitated the result of that outcome is death of the tumor cell. A tumor cell probably has been around millions of years and its survival in the body would be dependent on an adaptive immune system, that is an immune system that does not attack the cancer tumor.. If the immune system functions as an adaptive entity then there is a possibility the PD-1 and PDL_1 binding could additionally be connective to internal tumor cells internal survival functions that had been evolving through the millions of years. These functions could be a high priority for maintaining survival of the tumor cell. Thus what I'm trying to say is by taking the brakes off the immune system via dostarlimab, there could be a double punch to eradicate the tumor. First punch is the immune attack itself and secondly the tumor cell's internal significant internal functions being disabled that too can also lead to the cancer cell's death. Research in the possible internal functions of the tumor cell being disabled could be a worthy endeavor to embark upon in order to clarify as specifically as once can in order to determine what is going on with this dostarlimab treatment and its effectiveness in eradicating the rectal cancer cell's existence.

[preetigautam]

My grandfather (age-75) has been suffering from cancer, we came to know about this in november, 2014 and after which they have gone through a number of chemotherapies till now, and due to which my grandfather faced so many problems like extreme weakness, indigestion, loose motions, dehydration and many more but we were happy because we thought after this much struggle finally my nanu going to win the life because doctors told us that he is fine now and no more chemotherapies needed but recently after number of checkups doctors told that cancer has spreaded to the liver and other parts of the body and now there is no treatment left out for it!!! We are so tensed about that, we don't want to loose our grandfather !! So Please kindly suggest something regarding to this, Please tell what to do when the cancer spreads in the liver?? Please help me..my grandfather can't be able to eat anything due to this..I can't see him suffering like this please help me...