Immunotherapy: A New Age of Cancer Treatment
             The growing number of reports documenting successful immunotherapy of tumor patients and the increasing knowledge of the mechanisms governing immune reactions against tumor cells warrant further experimental efforts in this area. Currently, the most widely method of treating cancer is through: chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery. However, immunotherapy represents the new age of cancer treatment. In this research we looked at several different immunotherapy strategies in order to validate the idea that immunotherapy is a viable method of cancer treatment.
             Every year, about 1.25 million people in the United States are diagnosed with life-threatening forms of cancer (NIH, 1995). For the past four-decades, both the incidence and age-adjusted death rate from cancer in America has been steadily increasing. Cancer is defined as an abnormal growth, caused by underlying disease involving the whole body. It is not just limited to a lump or bump (NIH, 1995). Doctors today try to control cancer in three ways: surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. The latter two of these methods are harmful to the body in that they are invasive towards both cancerous and non-cancerous cells. Chemotherapy and radiation treatments can not differentiate between healthy cells and cancerous cells (Lymphoma, 1999). Moreover, it has been shown in research that high-dosage chemotherapy have shown to cause a relapse in the cancerous tumors. As much as 85% of the 170 high-risk primary breast cancer patients tested in a research went into relapse after receiv!
             ing high-dosage chemotherapy (Nieto, 1998). Furthermore, about 60% of 1.25 million patients diagnosed every year are treated with radiation; half of them are considered curable because their tumors are localized and susceptible to radiation (Mohan, 1997). Yet, despite the use of the best radiation therapy methods available, about one-third of these...