Immunotherapy: An Emergent Anti-Cancer Strategy (original) (raw)

Immunotherapy of Cancer: Developments and Reference Points, an Unorthodox Approach

Integrative Cancer Therapies

Oncology is currently a sector of medical science with accelerated progress due to rapid technological development, the advancement in molecular biology, and the invention of many innovative therapies. Immunotherapy partially accounts for this advance, since it is increasingly playing an important role in the treatment of cancer patients, bringing on a sense of hope and optimism through a series of clinical studies and cases with spectacular results. Immunotherapy, after the initial successes it experienced in the early 20th century, was forgotten after chemotherapy and radiotherapy prevailed and developed slowly in the background. Today, it is the new hope for cancer treatment, despite the unorthodox path it has followed. In this article, we study the course and key points of the discovery of immune-oncology from the oncologist's point of view. We also record the questions that have been posed about immunotherapy that sometimes lead to confusion or stalemate.

Cancer immunotherapy: dawn of the death of cancer?

International Reviews of Immunology, 2020

Cancer is one of the proficient evaders of the immune system which claims millions of lives every year. Developing therapeutics against cancer is extremely challenging as cancer involves aberrations in self, most of which are not detected by the immune system. Conventional therapeutics like chemotherapy, radiotherapy are not only toxic but they significantly lower the quality of life. Immunotherapy, which gained momentum in the 20 th century, is emerging as one of the alternatives to the conventional therapies and is relatively less harmful but more costly. This review explores the modern advances in an array of such therapies and try to compare them along with a limited analysis of concerns associated with them.

Immunotherapy: A New Revolutionary Treatment in Cancer

Journal of Drug Delivery and Therapeutics

Immunotherapy is a type of cancer treatment that aids your immune system to fight cancer. The immune system helps your body fight infections and other diseases. It is made up of white blood cells and organs and tissue of the lymph system. Immunotherapy is a uses substance made from living organisms to treat cancer. 1 Immunotherapy is treatment that focuses on boosting the body’s own immune response against cancer tumors. Cancer cells can be treacherous targets for both therapeutic agent and the body’s natural defense line the immune system. But a new approach to “rewiring macrophages, the body’s pathogen and debris eaters, could offer a fresh boost to cancer immunotherapy. 2 Keywords: Immunotherapy, cancer treatment, immune system, natural defense line

Cancer and the Immune System: The Vital Connection

2008

3. The next three chapters (4-6) constitute a tour de force into almost every form of currently available immunotherapeutic regimens and how they are faring in worldwide clinical trials. The seventh chapter is full of hope: reminding us of how far we have come and how much further we must travel on this exhilarating but arduous journey of battling cancer. The remainder of the book provides a brief look at the techniques behind the progress we have made in this field of biomedical science. We hope that you will find it enlightening.

Minireview: Immunotherapy and its role in cancer

2010

Immunotherapy entails treatments that stimulate, enhance or inhibit a patient's own immune system to challenge a specific disease. The immune system is capable of distinguishing between healthy and tumorigenic cells and the following treatments are aimed at those cells that become cancerous. There are three approaches employed in immunotherapy namely monoclonal antibody administration, immunotherapy making use of cytokines and vaccinebased immunotherapy. Artificially produced monoclonal antibodies are employed to target tumorigenic cells by exerting an antagonistic effect on growth factor receptors or to contribute to the induction of antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity.

Cancer Immunotherapy: Whence and Whither

Molecular cancer research : MCR, 2017

The current concepts and practice of cancer immunotherapy evolved from classical experiments that distinguished "self" from "non-self" and the finding that humoral immunity is complemented by cellular immunity. Elucidation of the biology underlying immune checkpoints and interactions between ligands and ligand receptors that govern the immune system's ability to recognize tumor cells as foreign has led to the emergence of new strategies that mobilize the immune system to reverse this apparent tolerance. Some of these approaches have led to new therapies such as the use of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to interfere with the immune checkpoint. Others have exploited molecular technologies to re-engineer a subset of T cells to directly engage and kill tumor cells, particularly those of B cell malignancies. However, before immunotherapy can become a more effective method of cancer care, there are many challenges that remain to be addressed and hurdles to overcome. ...

Cancer Immunotherapy Comes of Age

Journal of Clinical Oncology, 2011

Cancer immunotherapy comprises a variety of treatment approaches, incorporating the tremendous specificity of the adaptive immune system (T cells and antibodies) as well as the diverse and potent cytotoxic weaponry of both adaptive and innate immunity. Immunotherapy strategies include antitumor monoclonal antibodies, cancer vaccines, adoptive transfer of ex vivo activated T and natural killer cells, and administration of antibodies or recombinant proteins that either costimulate immune cells or block immune inhibitory pathways (so-called immune checkpoints). Although clear clinical efficacy has been demonstrated with antitumor antibodies since the late 1990s, other immunotherapies had not been shown to be effective until recently, when a spate of successes established the broad potential of this therapeutic modality. These successes are based on fundamental scientific advances demonstrating the toleragenic nature of cancer and the pivotal role of the tumor immune microenvironment in...