The American Society of Clinical Oncology’s 2017 Clinical Cancer Advances report highlights the most important clinical advances of the past year and previews where cancer science is headed.
Advance of the Year: Immunotherapy 2.0
This year, ASCO has named Immunotherapy 2.0 as the advance of the year. This selection recognizes the growing wave of progress using cancer immunotherapy, which has extended and improved the lives of patients, many of whom had few other effective treatment options.
A hundred years in the making, cancer immunotherapy is now a standard treatment option for people with a growing number of different cancers. In 2016 alone, the FDA approved immunotherapies for advanced forms of lung, kidney, bladder, and head and neck cancers, as well as Hodgkin lymphoma (HL).
For some people with these advanced-stage cancers, the advent of cancer immunotherapy is truly life changing. It often offers the only chance to live longer and better. And many believe that this first wave of success with cancer immunotherapy is just the beginning.
