Immunotherapy is a type of cancer treatment that helps your immune system fight cancer. The immune system helps your body fight infections and other diseases. It is made up of white blood cells and organs and tissues of the lymph system. Immunotherapy is a type of biological therapy. Though cancer Immunotherapy new treatment has become a promising standard-of-care treatment and in some cases, perhaps a cure for a wide variety of different cancers. But immunotherapy has its limitations. For one, the treatment is not approved for all cancers or all types or subtypes of cancer. A checkpoint inhibitor, for example, may be an option for patients with colorectal cancer with specific genetic features, but not for other types of colorectal cancer.

Currently, checkpoint inhibitor drugs are designed to seek out two targets: the CTLA-4 receptor and the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway. But cancer cells and immune cells have other receptors that may also be targets for immunotherapy. Research is continuing on TIM-3 (T-cell immunoglobulin and mucin-domain containing-3), a potential immunotherapy target found on immune cells. Chinese researchers suggest that combining a TIM-3 blockade along with one that targets PD-1 may produce a desired response.

“A growing body of evidence supports the relevance of targeting Tim-3 in human cancer. It is now well established that Tim-3 along with PD-1 marks dysfunctional T cells in multiple cancer types,” the researchers wrote. “Tim-3 blockade may also induce an anti-tumor immune response and mediate tumor regression in situations where anti-PD-1 or anti-CTLA4 does not work, such as in colorectal carcinomas.”

Scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center are researching a potential Immunotherapy new treatment target called VISTA, which has been found on immune cells in pancreatic tumors, among the most difficult cancers to treat. Dr. Bonilla also is involved in ongoing research into the use of checkpoint inhibitors to treat pancreatic cancers with high tumor mutational burden (TMB), which are tumors that have multiple cell mutations.