In the fight against cancer, CAR-T therapy and checkpoint inhibitors are two powerful types of immunotherapies that help the immune system fight cancer. CAR-T is like a custom-made special forces team. Doctors take a patient’s own T-cells (killer immune cells), genetically modify them in a lab to specifically recognize and attack that person’s cancer, multiply them, and infuse them back into the body. It’s highly personalised and has shown dramatic results, especially in blood cancers like lymphoma and multiple myeloma. They have shown little to no impact in solid tumors which account for 90 - 95% of all cancers.
Checkpoint inhibitors, on the other hand, are like removing the brakes from your immune system. Cancer cells often hide by sending “don’t attack me” signals. Drugs (such as Keytruda or Opdivo) block those signals, allowing the patient’s natural T-cells to recognize and attack the cancer more aggressively. They are easier to administer (usually as an IV drug) and work well for many solid tumors like melanoma, lung, and kidney cancer; however, over 60% of cancers still do not respond to them. In short: CAR-T reprograms your immune cells, while checkpoint inhibitors unleash the ones you already have.
