Another success for cancer immunotherapy

For cancer patients, personalized treatment offers a new range of options -- and hope - Los Angeles Times:

"Those words could serve as the new mantra in medicine. After having his tumor removed and undergoing chemotherapy and radiation, he received a novel treatment that was designed using his own white blood cells and proteins taken from his tumor to prod his immune system into recognizing and attacking more cancer in his body."

Many credit Dr. William B. Coley for pioneering cancer immunotherapy, in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Coley focused on triggering bacterial infections in cancer patients, because his review of case histories showed that these infections often caused tumors to shrink. He surmised that the infections stimulated patients' immune systems to attack the tumors as well as the bacteria.