"curable" patients-nearly 120,000 people each year-die with primary tumors still active at the original site (Mundt, 1995). Much like the chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments, surgery can have harmful effects as well. Some surgery procedures may be too invasive for the patients to carry out (NIH, 1995). Thus these methods of treatment leave much room for improvement. However, as the National Institute of Health suggests, "Biological therapy (sometimes called immunotherapy, biotherapy, or biological response modifier therapy) is a promising new addition to the family of cancer treatments that currently includes surgery, chem!
             otherapy, and radiation therapy. Biological therapies use the body's immune system, either directly or indirectly, to fight cancer or to lessen side effects that may be caused by some cancer treatments" (1995). This aspect of therapy is due to the fact that cancer cells are by definition abnormal and contain proteins, which might be recognized by the immune system as foreign because they are not present in normal tissues. However, for some reason the immune system often seems to ignore this abnormality and fails to attack tumors (Doctor's Guide, 1997). By utilizing the powers of our own immune systems, we may have a stronger defense against cancer than any man-made drugs, radiation therapy, or surgery. Thus, it is the purpose of this investigation to look at immunotherapy as a new method of treating cancer. By looking at the facts, we may find that immunotherapy should be used in a more regular basis than the procedures currently used to treat cancer.
             Clinical support for the idea that the immune system might aid in fighting cancer emerged in the 1800s, when physicians noticed that tumors sometimes regressed in cancer patients who contracted bacterial infections. William B. Coley, a surgeon at Memorial Hospital in New York City from 1892 to 1936, created therapies based on this obs...