Immunotherapy for vulvar cancer
Immunotherapy helps to strengthen or restore the immune system’s ability to fight cancer. This works to kill cancer cells and stop cancer cells from growing and spreading.
Immunotherapy is sometimes used to treat vulvar cancer. If you have immunotherapy, your healthcare team will use what they know about the cancer and about your health to plan the drugs, doses and schedules.
Immunotherapy drugs used for vulvar cancer may not be covered by all provincial and territorial health plans. Your healthcare team will talk to you about your options if they think you may benefit from these drugs.
Immune checkpoint inhibitors
The immune system normally stops itself from attacking normal cells in the body
by using specific proteins called checkpoints. Checkpoints slow down or stop an
immune system response. Some vulvar cancer cells sometimes use these checkpoints
to hide and avoid being attacked by the immune system. Immune checkpoint
inhibitors work by blocking the checkpoint proteins so immune system cells
(called
Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) is an immune checkpoint inhibitor that targets the PD-1 checkpoint protein. It may be used to treat metastatic vulvar cancer if the tumour has certain genetic changes (mutations) called microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H) or mismatch repair deficient (dMMR). Pembrolizumab may be offered only when the tumour can’t be removed by surgery, doesn't respond to previous treatments and there are no better treatment options available.
Side effects of immunotherapy
Side effects of immunotherapy will depend mainly on the type of drug or drug combination, the dose, how it’s given and your overall health. Tell your healthcare team if you have side effects that you think might be from immunotherapy. The sooner you tell them of any problems, the sooner they can suggest ways to help you deal with them.
Pembrolizumab may cause these side effects:
- skin problems, including itching
- fatigue
- diarrhea
- pain or stiffness in joints (arthralgia)
- thyroid problems
- nausea and vomiting
Find out more about immunotherapy
Find out more about immunotherapy. To make the decisions that are right for you, ask your healthcare team questions about immunotherapy.
Details on specific drugs change regularly. Find out more about sources of drug information and where to get details on specific drugs.
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