Update on the challenges and recent advances in cancer immunotherapy

Abstract

This overview provides an analysis of some of the immunotherapies currently in use and under investigation, with a special focus on the tumor microenvironment, which we believe is a major factor responsible for the general failure of immunotherapy to date. It is our expectation that combining immunotherapy with methods of altering the tumor microenvironment and targeting regulatory T cells and myeloid cells will yield favorable results.

Keywords:

• tumor microenvironment
• tumor immunity
• immunosuppression
• CTLA-4
• PD-1
• exosomes
• myeloid-derived suppressor cells
• T_regs

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.