Cell therapy from Japan: hope for Vietnam

University Vice President Professor Ta Thanh Van said that this advanced treatment has been used in a number of medical centres in Japan for several years now and has proved its worth.

Three years ago, the Japanese government officially recognised cell therapy as a cancer treatment by enacting regenerative medicine legislation.

Cell therapy, also known as cytotherapy, introduces beneficial cellular materials into a patient.

The immune system, which acts like body’s home security system, classifies its targets into two types of alien substances that need to be fought off. The first group comprises of antigens like molecules, viruses, and foreign cells. The second group comprises virus-infected or tumours.

For each group, the immune system adopts different measures to neutralise the ‘threats.’

With the first group, a humoral response, or antibody-mediated response, is deployed. This involves mostly B cells being delivered to the targets.

In the case of cancer, the cell-mediated response – involving mostly T cells – is deployed to neutralise threats by the invasion of tumour cells.

However, when the immune system is compromised, the tumour cells multiply unfettered.

Cell therapy is hence used as a measure to restore the balance in the patient’s immunity, strengthen and provide facilitative conditions for the proliferation of cancer-fighting cells.