Chemotherapy, Immunotherapy, and targeted therapies
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy uses drugs to destroy cancer cells, usually by ending the
cancer cells’ ability to grow and divide. A chemotherapy regimen,
or schedule, usually consists of a combination of drugs given in a specific
number of cycles over a set period of time. Chemotherapy may be given
on many different schedules depending on what worked best in clinical
trials for that specific type of regimen. It may be given once a week,
once every 2 weeks (also called dose-dense), once every 3 weeks, or even
once every 4 weeks. Side effects of chemotherapy depend on the individual,
the drug(s) used, and the schedule and dose used, but can often be very
successfully prevented or managed during treatment with supportive medications,
and they usually go away after treatment is finished. Although each person’s
experience can be different, many patients feel well during chemotherapy
and are able to maintain a normal daily lifestyle.
Immunotherapy
Immunotherapy is a type of breast cancer treatment that helps your body’s
immune system fight cancer by training it to find and destroy cancer cells.
It’s used to treat high-risk curable (early-stage) and metastatic
breast cancers. Breast cancer immunotherapy can be active or passive.
Active immunotherapies are drugs that focus your immune system on breast
cancer cells. To create these drugs, healthcare providers examine your
breast cancer cells for antigens. Your healthy cells have antigens. So
do intruders like cancer cells. Providers use what they learn about specific
antigens to make drugs that focus your immune system on antigens in breast
cancer cells. Passive immunotherapies are lab-made drugs that improve
your immune system’s existing cancer-fighting tools.
Targeted therapies
Targeted drug therapy uses medicines that are directed at proteins on breast
cancer cells that help them grow, spread, and live longer. Targeted drugs
work to destroy cancer cells or slow down their growth. Some targeted
therapy drugs, such as monoclonal antibodies, work in more than one way
to control cancer cells and may also be considered immunotherapy because
they boost the immune system. Like chemotherapy, these drugs enter the
bloodstream and reach almost all areas of the body, which makes them useful
against cancers that have spread to distant parts of the body. Targeted
drugs sometimes work even when chemo drugs don’t or help other types
of treatments work better.
Monoclonal antibodies
Monoclonal antibodies are man-made versions of immune system proteins (antibodies)
that are designed to attach to a specific target. Some breast cancers
make too much of a growth-promoting protein known as HER2. In HER2-positive
breast cancers, this cancer tends to grow and spread more aggressively
than HER2-negative breast cancers. Monoclonal antibodies attach to the
HER2 protein on cancer cells, which can help stop the cells from growing.
Hormone therapy
Most hormone therapies are not administered by infusion, but are drugs
taken as a pill or injection. Blocking the hormones can help prevent breast
cancer recurrence when used after chemotherapy. Also called endocrine
therapy, it’s an effective treatment for most tumors that test positive
for either estrogen or progesterone receptors. This type of tumor uses
hormones to fuel its growth. Depending on the type of hormone therapy
used, it can stop the body from making the hormone or block the hormone
from stimulating the cancer cells.
Questions or concerns about breast cancer or cancer care services call
our cancer navigator 504.503.5594.
