CANCER THERAPIES AND OUR IMMUNE SYSTEM.

The human immune system is both highly complex and very fascinating. However, due to various circumstances, our immune sytem can become impaired. And when it is impaired, it is no longer able to cope well with all kinds of bacterial/viral infections and cancer cells. So an impaired immune system may lead to serious health issues.

What is the cause? Dysfunctional immune systems can have various origins. In some cases it is inherited, auto-immune diseases can occur, obesity is a factor and a major inevitable cause is ageing.

On a daily basis, 24 hours a day, our immune system is 'scanning' our body for potentially harmfull (cancer) cells. When such is being discovered, lympocytes like Natural Killer (NK) cells and CD4+/CD8+ T-cells can act against such cancer cells.

These NK/CD4+/CD8+ cells can become functionaly impaired in their role as killers of cancer cells. Such due to the expression of so called: immune-checkpoints. When those immune-checkpoints are expressed - on the cell surfaces of immune cells - they can no longer cope well with cancer cells.

The discovery of Immune-checkpoints, for example type PD-1, caused a revolution in the world of cancer treatments. It turned out that by blocking PD-1 on the surface of NK/CD4+/CD8+ immune cells, these type of cells can become functional again. Healthy, functional immune (T)cells, are accordingly key in fights against different varieties of cancer.

The discovery of PD-1 was a major step in the fight against cancers. After the development of PD-1 blockers, the pharmaceutical industry started the development of blockers for other varieties of immune-checkpoints.
Other types of immune-checkpoints are: TIGIT, LAG3, BTLA, CTLA-4 and GITR.

The latest scientific insights, as published by experts in the field of immuno-oncology, reveal a rather logic tendency: the more different types of immune-checkpoints are blocked, the better the outcome of the therapies are. Though despite the better outlook by these type of blockers, the overall results - complete remissions - are not really that much impressive. Serious adverse reactions often lead to the discontinuation of such therapies.

Within the CASCADEplus system, a variety of 100% pure natural immune-checkpoint-blockers is being applied.