Our Education Ethos

Dr Ricky Fraser 

IOCN Deputy CEO and Education Lead 

"Immunotherapy and in particular checkpoint inhibitors has quickly changed the landscape of cancer care with the possibility of durable remissions in patients treated. Immunotherapy has a different set of toxicities which are autoimmune in nature and can be both life-threatening and permanent.


As a result of an increased number of licensed indications there are many oncology teams who are prescribing and managing patients receiving immunotherapy for the first time.


Education and training on immunotherapy for different healthcare professionals and team members is crucial to identify and manage the acute toxicities.


In addition to oncology team education and training, we have the education of patients and of the wider teams and organ specialist teams who are required to be able to identify and manage acute toxicities. Moreover, we known that immunotherapy side effects can occur months after completing treatment and thus we need to educate about late toxicities and issues around survivorship. "

Future Education Development and Plan 

We are aware of the need to evolve our educational offering over time to provide tailored training for other immunotherapies that are likely to become standard cancer treatment. These may include Tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), vaccines, CAR-T cell therapy, oncolytic viruses, bispecific receptors and cytokine treatments.