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What are the side effects of biological therapies?
The side effects associated with various biological therapies can differ by treatment type. However, pain, swelling, soreness, redness, itchiness, and rash at the site of infusion or injection are fairly common with these treatments.
Less common but more serious side effects tend to be more specific to one or a few types of biological therapy. For example, therapies intended to prompt an immune response against cancer can cause an array of flu-like symptoms, including fever, chills, weakness, dizziness, nausea or vomiting, muscle or joint aches, fatigue, headache, occasional breathing difficulties, and lowered or heightened blood pressure. Biological therapies that provoke an immune system response also pose a risk of severe or even fatal hypersensitivity (allergic) reactions.
Potential serious side effects of specific biological therapies are as follows:
MAbs
- Flu-like symptoms
- Severe allergic reaction
- Lowered blood counts
- Changes in blood chemistry
- Organ damage (usually to heart, lungs, kidneys, liver or brain)
Cytokines (interferons, interleukins, hematopoietic growth factors)
- Flu-like symptoms
- Severe allergic reaction
- Lowered blood counts
- Changes in blood chemistry
- Organ damage (usually to heart, lungs, kidneys, liver or brain)
Treatment vaccines
- Flu-like symptoms
- Severe allergic reaction
BCG
- Flu-like symptoms
- Severe allergic reaction
- Urinary side effects
- Pain or burning sensation during urination
- Increased urgency or frequency of urination
- Blood in the urine
Oncolytic viruses
- Flu-like symptoms
- Tumor lysis syndrome: severe, sometimes life-threatening alterations in blood chemistry following the release of materials formerly contained within cancer cells into the bloodstream
Gene therapy
- Flu-like symptoms
- Secondary cancer: techniques that insert DNA into a host cell chromosome can cause cancer to develop if the insertion inhibits expression of a tumor suppressor gene or activates an oncogene; researchers are working to minimize this possibility
- Mistaken introduction of a gene into healthy cells, including reproductive cells
- Overexpression of the introduced gene may harm healthy tissues
- Virus vector transmission to other individuals or into the environment
How can people obtain information about clinical trials of biological therapies for cancer?
Both FDA-approved and experimental biological therapies for specific types of cancer are being studied in clinical trials. The names of the biological therapy types listed below are links to descriptions of ongoing clinical trials that are testing those types of biological therapies in cancer patients. These trial descriptions can also be accessed by searching NCI’s list of cancer clinical trials on the NCI website. NCI’s list of cancer clinical trials includes all NCI-funded clinical trials as well as studies conducted by investigators at hospitals and medical centers throughout the United States and around the world.
Selected References
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Source: National Cancer Institute
