What is biologic therapy?
Biologic therapy (also called immunotherapy, biologic response modifier therapy, BRM, or biotherapy) uses the body’s immune system to fight cancer. The immune system helps protect your body from foreign invaders, such as bacteria or viruses. The immune system does not always recognize cancer cells as foreign. Even when the immune system does recognize cancer cells and tries to destroy them, its response is not always powerful enough to destroy the cancer. In addition, cancer cells appear to produce substances that protect them from the immune system. Biologic therapies are designed to boost the immune system and its ability to fight cancer. Researchers do not completely understand how these treatments work but they believe that they stop or slow the growth of cancer cells. This makes it easier for the immune system to kill the cancer cells and to stop them from spreading to other parts of the body. At this time, research does not show that biologic therapy is necessarily better at trea
