Dendritic Cell Therapy for Breast Cancer

Incidence of cancer is on the rise in India but what is worse is that more and more young people are coming under the radar of this disease. Also most patients die without medical attention. The major reason for this is lack of awareness about the fatal disease. Late professor Ralph Steinman was the first to discover dendritic cells sometime in the early seventies. Dendritic cells can be found in every individuals bloodstream and play a critical role in cancer treatment. These cells are capable of identifying foreign substance including cancer cells. They then move forward to process the cancer cells and then activate the immune system by bringing the foreign substance along with the existing body. Once the immune system is activated, the cancer cells are destroyed. Dendritic Cell Therapy is capable of attacking the targets the micro metastasis and killing the cancer cells. In this way it prevents the development of cancer and slows down the spread of cancer. It is a relatively safe form of treatment having very minimum side effects. The cancer patients get a fresh lease of life with this treatment. This therapy has come up as a good treatment for breast cancer. It works best just after the surgery when the tumor load is minimal. Apart from that, it also avoids relapse of cancer. A Cancer relapse occurs because there are chances of cancer cells remaining even after the treatment. While initially these cancer cells will be dormant for some time, gradually slowly they will start multiplying which will result in either a recurrence or relapse. Cancer occurs due to the failure of the immune system. Studies have been conducted which prove that this correction of the immune system can take place outside the body. The dendritic cell therapy involves the extraction of mononuclear cells which are taken from the blood of the patient. Then the cells are transformed into dendritic cells which fight cancer. Once the transformation is done, they are inserted back into the body of the patient. While it has been overall established this is a relatively safe treatment, immunologic testing need to be done to understand the condition of the immune system. Once that is done the doctor will decide

if a patient can go for Dendritic Cell therapy. Active autoimmune disease as well as pregnancy is possible contraindications. This should be carefully discussed and reviewed with the doctor before proceeding for the treatment.