Immunotherapy is a type of cancer treatment that helps the immune system recognize, target or destroy cancer cells. Cancer can sometimes avoid immune detection or suppress the body’s immune response. Immunotherapy works by restoring or strengthening immune activity, or by equipping immune cells to identify specific cancer markers.
Immunotherapy has become an established treatment for several solid tumours and blood cancers. Depending on the diagnosis, it may be used alone or in combination with chemotherapy, targeted therapy, radiation therapy or other treatments.
At Apollo Cancer Centres, medical oncologists and hematologists determine whether immunotherapy is appropriate based on the cancer type and stage, biomarker results, previous treatments, overall health and current clinical evidence. Patients receive regular monitoring to assess response and identify immune-related side effects promptly.
Why Immunotherapy Is Required
Cancers with Relevant Biomarkers: May be recommended when testing identifies features such as PD-L1 expression, microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H), mismatch repair deficiency (dMMR) or, in specific settings, high tumour mutational burden.
First-line Treatment: Used as an initial treatment for certain advanced cancers, either alone or in combination with chemotherapy or another therapy.
Recurrent or Treatment-resistant Cancer: May provide an additional option when cancer returns or does not respond adequately to previous treatments.
Combination Treatment: Can be combined with chemotherapy, targeted therapy or other immunotherapies when evidence shows that the combination may improve outcomes.
Tumour-agnostic Treatment: Certain immunotherapies may be prescribed on the basis of biomarkers such as MSI-H or dMMR, regardless of where the cancer originated.
Selected Blood Cancers: CAR-T cell therapy, bispecific antibodies and other immune-based treatments may be considered for eligible patients with specific leukaemias, lymphomas or plasma-cell cancers.
Key Advantages
Side Effects of Immunotherapy
- Fatigue
- Skin rash or itching
- Diarrhoea or inflammation of the bowel
- Cough, breathing difficulty or lung inflammation
- Joint or muscle pain
- Liver inflammation
- Kidney inflammation
- Changes in thyroid, adrenal or pituitary function
- Neurological, cardiac or other organ-related inflammation in rare cases
Continuum of Care
At Apollo Cancer Centres, immunotherapy is planned and delivered by experienced medical oncologists, hematologists and trained oncology teams. Each patient is evaluated to determine whether immunotherapy is suitable based on the diagnosis, treatment stage, biomarker findings, previous therapies and overall health.
Before treatment, patients receive guidance on how immunotherapy will be administered, the monitoring required and the symptoms that should be reported promptly. During treatment, clinical reviews, laboratory tests and imaging help assess response and detect side effects. When specialized treatments such as CAR-T cell therapy are indicated, care is supported by multidisciplinary teams and appropriate monitoring facilities throughout preparation, infusion and recovery.
