Immune System and Allergy Terms

A monoclonal antibody that is being studied in the treatment of some types of cancer.

Tolerance is not the absence of an immune response but an actively maintained one, and this is the cell that maintains it.

A cancer vaccine made with a form of a chicken virus that does not cause disease in humans.

Stripping out B cells treats both a cancer of those cells and diseases in which the same cells drive an attack on the body.

Because CD20 is absent from stem cells and from antibody-producing plasma cells, the B cell population rebuilds and existing immunity is largely kept.

Romiplostim is an injectable medication that raises platelet counts in chronic immune thrombocytopenia by stimulating platelet production in the bone marrow.

A cancer vaccine made with a form of a vaccinia virus that does not cause disease in humans.

Granulomas of sarcoid look almost identical to those of tuberculosis under the microscope, so infection has to be excluded before the label is applied.

Some cases settle on their own without treatment while others scar the lungs permanently, and the two are hard to tell apart early on.

SCID is a group of rare inherited disorders in which T lymphocyte function is severely impaired, leaving the immune system unable to fight infection.

A monoclonal antibody that binds to cells that have the CD30 antigen on their surface, including Hodgkin disease cells and cells from anaplastic large cell lymphoma, and cutaneous T-cell lymphoma.

A monoclonal antibody that binds to cells that have the CD40 antigen on their surface, including cells from multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

A vaccine composed of a substance that enhances immunity plus an antigen found on some tumors of the colon, breast, lung, ovary, pancreas, and stomach.

A monoclonal antibody that is being studied in the treatment of certain lymphoproliferative disorders and psoriasis.

A positive result proves the immune system remembers the substance, which is not the same as proving it causes symptoms.

An indolent (slow-growing) type of lymphoma in which too many immature lymphocytes (white blood cells) are found mostly in the lymph nodes.

Myeloma already present in the marrow and visible in the blood, but not yet doing the organ damage that defines the disease needing treatment.

A monoclonal antibody used to prevent red blood cells from being destroyed in patients with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH), a red blood cell disorder.

An immune cell such as a T or B lymphocyte that responds to a single, specific antigen.

Having to do with the spleen (an organ in the abdomen that makes immune cells, filters the blood, stores blood cells, and destroys old blood cells).