immunotherapy

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Some Mentally Ill Patients Abruptly Turn Sane
Their Mom Had
Schizophrenia—Until
She Got Chemo
LONGFORM
Aug 31, 2025 3:30 PM CDT

Their Mom Had Schizophrenia—Until She Got Chemo

New Yorker dives into how some with seeming mental illness are 'cured' with immunotherapy drugs

(Newser) - In May 2024, Christine and Angie called a psychiatrist to examine their mother, who'd long suffered from paranoia and delusions and been diagnosed more than once with schizophrenia. "The psychiatrist was like, 'Why have you called me here? ... She has no symptoms,'" Christine recalls of...

This Blood Cancer Was Thought Incurable—Until Now
A Blood Cancer Was
Thought Incurable—Until Now
NEW STUDY
Jun 7, 2025 7:30 AM CDT

A Blood Cancer Was Thought Incurable—Until Now

A third of advanced multiple myeloma patients are cancer-free years after CAR-T immunotherapy

(Newser) - A revolutionary immunotherapy has stunned doctors by making an aggressive, previously incurable blood cancer vanish in some patients—and for the first time, experts are daring to talk about a potential cure. A study with 97 patients with advanced multiple myeloma, whose disease had returned despite multiple treatments and...

Peanut Butter Surprisingly Helpful for Peanut Allergies

Researchers find potential 'game-changer' strategy in oral immunotherapy

(Newser) - Consuming increasing amounts of peanut butter could cure children with mild peanut allergies, according to a new study, though researchers caution the strategy should not be tried without the input of an allergy specialist. As NBC News reports, all of 32 children who received oral immunotherapy over an 18-month period...

Australia's Gift to Peanut Allergy Babies: Free Peanuts

Oral immunotherapy program intended to reduce sensitivity among kids

(Newser) - Babies with a peanut allergy in Australia will be exposed to peanut products daily under a first-of-its-kind program. Under the supervision of allergy specialists, eligible infants will be offered gradually increasing doses of peanut powder before reaching a threshold that can be maintained for at least two years in a...

8 Weeks Into Study, Cancer Patient Recounts 'Amazing' Call

2-drug immunotherapy appears to have wiped out his throat cancer

(Newser) - A new study in the UK suggests that some cancer patients get better results with a drug combination that allows them to avoid aggressive chemotherapy. The phase 3 trial involved about 1,000 patients with advanced head and neck cancer, according to a post by the Institute of Cancer Research...

For Rare Form of Cancer, Drug May Be a 'Game Changer'

Nivolumab appears to help surgical patients avoid a quick recurrence of esophageal cancer

(Newser) - Esophageal cancer may be rare, but it's a particularly brutal form of the disease. It's common for patients to undergo chemo, radiation, and surgery, only to have the cancer return quickly, notes the New York Times . A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine, however, is...

T Cells Battle Cancer in New Breakthrough Treatment

One's own immune system is empowered to fight the disease

(Newser) - A breakthrough cancer treatment is showing what researchers have called "remarkable" promise in the fight against some of the most common forms of the disease. Per NPR , researchers at the National Institutes of Health believe they've completely rid a woman of her metastatic breast cancer after she ran...

Drug Shows Dramatic Results in Lung Cancer Trial

New hope in fight against the most common form of lung cancer

(Newser) - For the first time, a treatment that boosts the immune system greatly improved survival in people newly diagnosed with the most common form of lung cancer, the AP reports. In the study, Merck's Keytruda, given with chemotherapy, cut in half the risk of dying or having the cancer...

Pricey New Cancer Therapy Could Save Thousands

It's the 2nd treatment to turn cells into cancer-killers

(Newser) - The Food and Drug Administration has approved a second "living drug" to fight cancer—a personalized treatment that alters a patient's own cells to turn them into cancer-killers. The new "CAR T-cell therapy" has been approved for non-Hodkins lymphoma patients with few other treatment options, a group...

Drug Shows Promise Treating One of the Nastiest Cancers

Patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer did better, with no side effects

(Newser) - The trial was a small one, but a new study is raising hope that a new drug can fight a particularly deadly form of pancreatic cancer. What's more, unlike chemo, it seems to do so without side effects. Researchers at St. George's University in London report in the...

Sean Parker Just Made 'Unprecedented' $250M Cancer Move

New institute will bring together leading research centers

(Newser) - Big news in cancer research Wednesday: Sean Parker, the founder of Napster and a co-founder of Facebook, is giving $250 million to six leading cancer centers so they can collaborate on immunotherapy in what Fortune calls "unprecedented" fashion. The nitty gritty:
  • The new Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy will
...

Cancer Treatment Yields 'Unprecedented' Results

Advanced leukemia patients go into remission

(Newser) - They were leukemia patients with months to live and nothing to lose, so researchers tried a novel therapy involving the engineering of the patients' own cells. Result? For 94% of participants, their symptoms disappeared, reports the Guardian . For those with other types of blood cancers, the response rate was a...

'One-Two Punch' on Cancer May Replace Chemotherapy

Drug combo shrinks 58% of melanomas via immunotherapy

(Newser) - Researchers have discovered a way to give aggressive skin cancer what one calls "a powerful one-two punch." In an international trial on 945 patients with advanced melanoma, drugs ipilimumab and nivolumab were able to shrink or stabilize tumors in 58% of people for an average of 11.5...

No, Honey Won't Cure Your Allergies
 No, Honey Won't 
 Cure Your Allergies 
OPINION
May 5, 2015 4:39 PM CDT

No, Honey Won't Cure Your Allergies

Slate writer explains why the notion is wrong

(Newser) - Indulging in honey from a local beekeeper has much to recommend it—except for the misguided notion that it will cure your allergies, writes Rachel E. Gross at Slate . This widespread myth is rooted in the idea that because bees make honey out of pollen, consuming it in low doses...

New Drugs May Deliver Potent Cancer Defense

Strategies include getting the body's own immune system to fight back

(Newser) - A meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology is taking place this weekend in Chicago, and a spate of genuinely hopeful stories is emerging about new drugs and strategies. The Wall Street Journal says significant progress has been made at last in training the body's own immune system...

FDA Approves Vaccine for Prostate Cancer

Provenge is first immunotherapy to gain approval

(Newser) - A first-of-a-kind prostate cancer treatment that uses the body's immune system to fight the disease received federal approval today, offering an important alternative to more taxing treatments like chemotherapy. Dendreon Corp.'s Provenge vaccine trains the immune system to fight tumors. It's called a "vaccine" even though it treats...

Immunotherapy Offers New Hope on Alzheimer's

(Newser) - An immune-system booster already used in the treatment of other diseases could prove to be a powerful weapon in the fight against Alzheimer's disease, researchers have found. Analyzing the records of patients who received intravenous immunoglobulin—IVIg—they discovered that recipients were 42% less likely to develop Alzheimer's, HealthDay reports.

New Prostate Cancer Drug Amazes Researchers

Experimental therapy cures men's inoperable cancer

(Newser) - The total recovery of two patients suffering inoperable prostate cancer under a new treatment has amazed researchers at the Mayo Clinic, the Minnesota Post reports. The men, who suffered from a highly aggressive and deadly form of the disease, were found to be cancer-free after treatment with an experimental drug...

Melanoma Cured by Cloning Patient's Own Immune Cells

Immune system boost wipes out tumors

(Newser) - Scientists eliminated a man's late-stage melanoma by giving the body's own defenses a massive boost, Scientific American reports. They removed infection-fighting white blood cells from the patient's body, cloned them in the lab until they numbered in the billions, and injected them back into the patient. He was tumor-free 2...

Science Could Crack Peanut Allergy: Expert

Researcher predicts cure, or genetically modified nut

(Newser) - Scientists are working to help those with peanut allergies and may even replace nuts with a tasty, genetically modified snack, one expert says. "There are multiple types of studies that are ongoing now," said Dr. Wesley Burks of Duke University. "I think there's some type of immunotherapy...

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