Immune System Modulations in Cancer Treatment: Nanoparticles in Immunotherapy

Abstract

Cancer immunotherapy is based on the idea of overcoming the main problems in the traditional cancer treatments and enhancing the patient’s long-term survival and quality of life. Immunotherapy methods aimed to influence the immune system, to detect and eradicate the tumors site and predict the potential results. Nowadays, nanomaterials-based immunotherapy approaches are gaining interest due to numerous advantages like their ability to target cells and tissues directly and reduce the off-target toxicity. Therefore, topics about immune system components, nanomaterials, their usage in immunotherapy and the benefits they provide will be discussed in this presented book chapter. Immunotherapy can be divided into two groups mainly; active and passive immunotherapy including their subtitles such as immune checkpoint inhibitors, adoptive immunotherapy, CAR-T therapies, vaccines, and monoclonal antibodies. Main classification and the methods will be evaluated. Furthermore, state-of-art nanocarriers based immunotherapy methods will be mentioned in detail. The terms of size, charge, material type and surface modifications of the nanoparticles will be reviewed to understand the interference of immune system and nanoparticles and their advantages/disadvantages in immunotherapy systems.