New Approaches in Gastric Cancer Immunotherapy

Abstract

Cancer has an inferior prognosis in most cases and is often challenging to treat. Gastric cancer (GC), which is among leading causes of the top five malignant tumor deaths worldwide and whose incidence is increasing every day, is no exception. GC is frequently diagnosed at a progressive or metastatic stage of the disease. At this stage, the clinical effectiveness of conventional treatments such as surgery and chemotherapy is limited, and the median overall survival is reduced to only about a few months. The tumor microenvironment (TME) and the specific conditions that govern it, concurrently with multiple mutations, have significantly increased the resistance of cancer cells. However, the study of molecular biology, cell signaling pathways, and immune system function provides a new approach using immunotherapy such as immune inhibitors, T cell transfer therapy, monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), therapeutic vaccines, etc. to overcome cancer resistance. In addition, the use of nanoparticles (NPs), especially theranostic NPs permits for better monitoring of the response during treatment, and its combination with immunotherapy, promising strategies for providing a new treatment. This chapter provides an overview of these new advances in treating GC cancer.