The University of Chicago Medicine is among the first 30 institutions in the country to offer tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy for advanced melanoma, immediately activating as an authorized treatment center after federal regulators approved the treatment on February 16, 2024.
TILs are immune cells that can “recognize” and successfully invade tumors to attack malignant cancer cells from inside the tumor mass. In cases where cancer successfully proliferates, the body’s innate population of TIL cells is not strong enough to destroy tumors.
During TIL treatment, physicians remove a small piece of a patient’s tumor and extract TILs from it. Scientists can then multiply those TILs in the laboratory, growing billions more to be reinfused into the patient in an “activated” state so they can seek out and attack tumors more powerfully than before. READ MORE
