Bile duct cancer treatment with immunotherapy

Usually, the immune system fights viruses and bacteria, and generally, any "outsiders" who differ from "own" cells. Unfortunately, bile duct cancer antigens also belong to such "outsiders. " "Wrong" cells occur in the body regularly. But the immune system detects and destroys them. However, malignant cells are insidious. Mutations make them look "their own" and invisible to the immune system. Immunotherapy for bile duct cancer activates the patient's immune system to fight tumor cells. Drugs block molecules that interfere with the work of antitumor immunity, "train" the immune system to respond to cancer cells, and "tag" cancer cells to make it easier for the immune system to recognize them. Various methods preliminarily examine tumor cells to understand if the therapy will work. Then, oncologists will require a biopsy followed by immunohistochemistry to decide whether immunotherapy works for a particular bile duct cancer patient. Immunotherapy is carried out by intravenous drug administration. As with other medications, immunotherapy has a certain cyclicity, and drugs are injected at specific intervals. Depending on the immune drug and the dose used, these intervals can vary enormously — from once every two to once every six weeks.