Conclusion
T. Natasha Posner in Herpes Simplex, 2008
Immunotherapy can work through non-specific stimulation of the immune system (by drugs such as isoprinosine (Immunovir) or administration of adjuvant preparations), or by direct stimulation of the immune system by vaccination. However, a study comparing the suppressive efficacy of Immunovir to acyclovir, demonstrated no clinical benefit for patients with HSV symptoms with the former drug (Kinghorn et al. 1992). There have been a number of attempts to develop a successful vaccine against HSV infection and many media reports of ‘breakthroughs’. Gordon Skinner and his team of microbiologists at Birmingham Virus Research Unit developed and used one of these vaccines. Summarising the usefulness of these interventions in 1993, he wrote: The history of attempts to modify the pattern of recurrent herpetic disease by vaccination has been long, valiant but not unrewarding … The totality of evidence – particularly from placebo-controlled studies during the last 10 years – suggests a measure of disease modulation by most vaccine formulations.(Skinner 1993)
Subcutaneous Immunotherapy for Allergic Rhinoconjunctivitis, Allergic Asthma, and Prevention of Allergic Diseases
Richard F. Lockey, Dennis K. Ledford in Allergens and Allergen Immunotherapy, 2014
The relative advantage of each of these three interventions—allergen avoidance, pharmacotherapy, and allergen immunotherapy—is variable, but a combination of the interventions should improve the clinical outcome. Allergen avoidance always is the first-line attempt and may reduce the need for additional intervention even when not completely effective [3]. A meta-analysis does not confirm the efficacy of single measures [10]. A multifaceted intervention in selected subjects may be effective, but more data are needed. Drug treatment is often the next step to reduce symptom severity. However, for patients with a constant need for preventive (local steroids) pharmacotherapy, early initiation of allergen immunotherapy is advantageous, while the severity of the disease is modest and when the possibility of prevention of asthma is the greatest [9,11]. Allergen immunotherapy interferes with the pathophysiological mechanisms of allergic inflammation, with a potential for a prolonged effect compared with symptomatic pharmacological treatment [9,11]. Although drugs are highly effective and with limited side effects, they are a symptomatic treatment, whereas immunotherapy represents the only treatment that might alter the natural course of the disease [11]. By using an appropriate allergen vaccine for correct indications, immunotherapy will reduce the severity of the allergic disease significantly, reduce the need for antiallergic drugs, and consequently improve the quality of life for allergic patients [12,13].
Delivery of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors Using Nanoparticles
Hala Gali-Muhtasib, Racha Chouaib in Nanoparticle Drug Delivery Systems for Cancer Treatment, 2020
Currently, immunotherapy is one of the most promising cancer treatments [2] and the development of new immunotherapies has become a necessity [3, 4]. In recent years, immunotherapy has become widespread and has been used to treat both hematological and solid cancers [2]. Immunotherapy is a biological therapy that involves activation of the immune system to target and kill cancer cells through different approaches. Promising immunotherapy approaches include adoptive cell transfer, therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), treatment vaccines, cytokine treatment using interferons and interleukins, Bacillus Calmette Guérin (BCG), which is a weakened bacterium used in the treatment of bladder cancer, and immune checkpoint inhibitors. Chimeric antigen receptor therapy also known as CAR T-cell therapy has stood out as a clinically effective type of adoptive cell transfer therapy. Immune checkpoint inhibitors, in particular, have shown potential in the treatment of several cancers and have been FDA approved for the treatment of melanoma (recurrent and/or metastatic), non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLCs), genitourinary cancers (GUCs), head and neck cancers (HNCs), renal cell carcinomas, urothelial carcinomas, non-Hodgkin lymphomas and other cancers [5].
Sequencing the next generation of glioblastomas
Published in Critical Reviews in Clinical Laboratory Sciences, 2018
Another way of treating glioblastoma is with immunotherapy [32,33]. Immunotherapy is a collective term for treatments that modulate immune activity [34]. The advantage of immunotherapy is a lower chance of unwanted side effects because the immune cells elicit a response only towards the tumor cells. There are four main immunotherapy approaches in glioblastoma: dendritic cell immunotherapeutic strategies use the ability of dendritic cells to make T cells, B cells, and natural killer cells as powerful antitumor effectors; peptide immunotherapy uses patient dendritic cells to provoke a strong immune response; immune checkpoints refer to the maintenance of homeostasis by negative control of T-cell mediated immune response; and chimeric antigen-receptor T-cells recognize major histocompatibility complex class I antigens on tumor cells [35]. The most extensively explored immunotherapeutic method is vaccination against EGFRvIII. The peptide used in this treatment (rindopepimut) is the amino acid sequence of EGFRvIII (exons 2–6 deletions), which occurs in 25% of the patients. Reports indicated a positive correlation between EGFRvIII vaccination and the increase of progression-free survival (12 months); overall survival increased from 22.8 months in patients without immune reactivity to EGFRvIII to 47.7 months in patients who developed an immune reaction against EGFRvIII [35–38].
Building on the anti-PD1/PD-L1 backbone: combination immunotherapy for cancer
Published in Expert Opinion on Investigational Drugs, 2019
Alvaro H Ingles Garces, Lewis Au, Robert Mason, Jennifer Thomas, James Larkin
The development of immunotherapy in oncology is based on the insight that cancer growth is kept under surveillance by the immune system [1] and one of the main objectives of immunotherapy is to reinvigorate anti-tumor immune functions and improve the ability of the immune system to recognize and eliminate malignant cells [2]. Immunotherapy encompasses different classes of drugs (Table 1), mainly represented by cytokines, immunomodulatory monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), cancer vaccines, antibodies, oncolytic viruses, cell-based therapies, and tumor-targeting mAbs. The checkpoint inhibitors (e.g. PD-1, PD-L1, CTLA-4) are immunomodulatory agents that have revolutionized the treatment of cancer and have become standard therapy for several tumor types as they can durably control disease (Table 2)[2–6]. Effective cancer immunotherapy depends on the status of the immune response in the tumor microenvironment (TME) and patients with tumors that contain a high density of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) are most likely to respond to immunotherapy, although this is not sufficient for complete cancer eradication [7,8] (Figure 1).
Sex difference in response to non-small cell lung cancer immunotherapy: an updated meta-analysis
Published in Annals of Medicine, 2022
Jiali Liang, Jiaze Hong, Xin Tang, Xinyi Qiu, Keying Zhu, Liyuan Zhou, Dina Guo
Lung cancer is current the second most diagnosed tumour with its mortality rate ranks the first around the world. The vast majority of lung cancer is NSCLC [7]. In addition, NSCLC was found to be a tumour in the presence of a sexual dimorphism [8]. Therefore, it is very necessary to study the sex effect in therapeutic efficacy in NSCLC patients. The types of immunotherapy include vaccines, antibody therapies, ICIs, oncolytic virus therapy, chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, etc. Among the ICIs, programmed cell death 1 (PD-1), programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1), and cytotoxic T-lymphocyte protein 4 (CTLA-4) are the most well-represented [1]. Herein, this meta-analysis was conducted to study the therapeutic differences in ICIs (PD-1, PD-L1 or CTLA-4) between males and females in NSCLC patients in order to explore the application scheme of immunotherapy in clinical practice.
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