Helpful Information for Patients
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We realize the world of healthcare is fairly complicated and can be scary at times. It seems everywhere you go for care, your caregivers are speaking a different language. Below is a "Question and Answer" section
we hope you will find helpful in your search through
the maze of healthcare.
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Information and Frequently Asked Questions
What is Immunotherapy?
Immunotherapy is used to help mobilize the body's own defenses to destroy cancer cells without destroying healthy tissue. Immunotherapy is used to help a person's immune system to recognize the cancer cells and to destroy them. When cancer develops, the immune system failed to identify the tumor cells as invaders. Since cancer is a normal cell that has transformed into a tumor cell, the immune system has a hard time recognizing it as a invader. The Human Immune Therapy Center is working to help the immune system recognize the cancer cells as invaders that need to be destroyed. By identification of unique antigens located on the surface of cancer cells, the immune system will know what to look for and destroy.
What is Interferon?
Check out our interferon education packet for patients.
What is the rationale behind the melanoma vaccine?
What is a Clinical Trial?
Clinical trials are used to study new therapies for cancers as well as other diseases. In particular, the Human Immune Therapy Center focuses on cancer therapies involving the immune system. Clinical trials are important for answering specific scientific questions on how to better treat a given disease or cancer. Even the best results in the laboratory need to be tried in patients to get a more accurate conclusion of possible outcomes. Clinical trials provide the data needed to evaluate a particular treatment and to decide if the treatment should be used in other patients with the same disease. Another benefit of clinical trials is that they provide multiple options for treatment. Patients often exhaust all conventional therapies and therefore need alternatives.
What is a lymph node biopsy and why do you perform them?
Read an article about lymph node biopsies by our director, Craig Slingluff, M.D.
Who do I contact for information on trial eligibility?
For information about clinical trials, contact Jonni Thoma at (434) 982-6714 or mjh4a@virginia.edu or Emily Stell at (434) 982-6584 or ems2b@virginia.edu. If you have not already done so, you can also view basic eligibility requirements and trial outlines on our site under current trials.
Where can I find more information about publications and newsletters resulting from trials at the Human Immune Therapy Center?
You may also search PubMed, a database for journal articles, for Craig Slingluff, MD, or any of our principal investigators. Their names are located in the "About Us" tab under "Meet the Staff". If you would prefer, you can contact our office to send the articles to you electronically at (434)243-2611.
Do you have questions that you'd like to ask our team? Contact us at HIT-Center@virginia.edu or (434)243-2611.
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