Strategies of current cancer immunotherapy

Abstract

Cancers are a significant health problem in the world. The most common therapeutic methods applied in oncology are chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgical methods. Finding new therapies in this branch of medicine, as well as developing solutions with the highest possible effectiveness, taking into account the multifactorial nature of cancer, is important from both the scientific and medical point of view and, for obvious reasons, it is in the interest of many people. Immunotherapy, despite many years of initial failures, has become one of the most important clinically approved new treatments in oncology and is now successfully used in the treatment of certain types of cancer. Current immunotherapeutic strategies are based on monoclonal antibodies (including inhibitors of immune control points), cytokines, anti-cancer vaccines, oncolytic viruses, as well as adoptive cell transfer. For many cancer immunotherapies, an increase in their effectiveness is observed when they are used with other types of immunotherapy as well as in combination with molecular targeted therapy, chemotherapy or radiotherapy. The dynamic development of cancer immunotherapy since the beginning of the 21st century results from the advances in genetic engineering, as well as from the increase in knowledge about the anticancer immune response and the nature of cancer cells including abnormalities in their metabolism, the ability to create a tumor microenvironment and the induction of immunosuppression. The aim of the study is to present current knowledge in the field of cancer immunotherapy strategies.