Dendritic cell based cancer immunotherapy

Viskam Wijewardana
Department of Advanced Pathobiology Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Osaka Prefecture University

 

 

 

 

 

Cancer is the main cause of deaths in Japan and the prevalence rate is rising all over the world. Up to date, chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy have been mainly used against the disease. However, these therapies show serious toxicity and has not been completely successful. Therefore, we have tried to develop harmless and innovative treatment. In this method we use a patient’s own immune system to fight the disease. Using a special type of cell called “dendritic cell” (DC), we educate the immune system to strongly attack cancer cells. We are now treating dog cancer patients by this method. Since dogs get cancer that is very similar to human such as mammary tumor and lymphoma, our results will provide useful information to cancer therapy in human.