Cancer treatments that are more likely to weaken the immune system are: This is because they can cause a drop in the number of white blood cells made in the bone marrow. The cancer can stop the bone marrow from making so many blood cells.Ĭertain cancer treatments can temporarily weaken the immune system. This happens most often in leukaemia or lymphoma, but it can happen with other cancers too.
The bone marrow makes blood cells that help to fight infection.
The immune system is important to people with cancer because: So it is sometimes called the immune response. The immune system protects the body against illness and infection that bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites can cause. It is a collection of reactions and responses that the body makes to damaged cells or infection. Cancer treatments that use the immune system What the immune system does