Abstract
Simple SummaryCancer becomes one of the major public health problems globally and the burden is expected to be increasing. Currently, both the medical and research communities have attempted an approach to nonconventional cancer therapies that can limit damage or loss of healthy tissues and be able to fully eradicate the cancer cells. In the last few decades, cancer immunotherapy becomes an important tactic for cancer treatment. Immunotherapy of cancer must activate the host’s anti-tumor response by enhancing the innate immune system and the effector cell number, while, minimizing the host’s suppressor mechanisms. However, many immunotherapies are still limited by poor therapeutic targeting and unwanted side effects. Hence, a deeper understanding of tumor immunology and antitumor immune responses is essential for further improvement of cancer immunotherapy. In addition, effective delivery systems are required to deliver immunotherapeutic agents to the site of interest (such as: to Tumor microenvironments, to Antigen-Presenting Cells, and to the other immune systems) to enhance their efficacy by minimizing off-targeted and unwanted cytotoxicity.In the last few decades, cancer immunotherapy becomes an important tactic for cancer treatment. However, some immunotherapy shows certain limitations including poor therapeutic targeting and unwanted side effects that hinder its use in clinics. Recently, several researchers are exploring an alternative methodology to overcome the above limitations. One of the emerging tracks in this field area is nano-immunotherapy which has gone through rapid progress and revealed considerable potentials to solve limitations related to immunotherapy. Targeted and stimuli-sensitive biocompatible nanoparticles (NPs) can be synthesized to deliver immunotherapeutic agents in their native conformations to the site of interest to enhance their antitumor activity and to enhance the survival rate of cancer patients. In this review, we have discussed cancer immunotherapy and the application of NPs in cancer immunotherapy, as a carrier of immunotherapeutic agents and as a direct immunomodulator.
Highlights
Cancer becomes one of a killer disease and its burden is anticipated to increase worldwide due to population growth, and lifestyles changes [1,2].Cancers 2020, 12, 3773; doi:10.3390/cancers12123773 www.mdpi.com/journal/cancersAccording to global cancer observatory data (GLOBOCAN), 9.6 million deaths from cancer were estimated in 2018 [3]
In the last few decades, several researchers have deeply explored a regulatory mechanism of antitumor immunity, the immune checkpoint pathways, which lays a basic foundation for the invention of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors (ICIs), that have revolutionized cancer treatment [165,166]
The results revealed that Pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (PLD) combined with avelumab slightly improved overall survival (OS) (15.7), progression-free survival (PFS) (3.7), and objective response rate (ORR) (13.3) compared to either PLD (13.1, 3.5, and 4.2 for OS, PFS, and ORR, respectively) or avelumab (11.8, 1.9, and 3.7 for OS, PFS, and ORR, respectively) alone (Reference: ClinicalTrials.gov; NCT0258005)
Summary
Cancer becomes one of a killer disease and its burden is anticipated to increase worldwide due to population growth, and lifestyles changes (such as smoking, poor diet, physical inactivity) [1,2]. The widely known conventional treatment methods for cancer include surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy [4]. Due to the increasing knowledge of molecular and cancer biology, a notable change was observed in cancer treatment for the last few decades. Conventional cancer treatment has certain limitations, which urges further research investigation. Different research has been underway to improve the survival rate of cancer patients which includes immunotherapy, stem cell transplantation, and targeted cancer therapies [5,6,7,8,9,10]. We briefly discuss the application of nanoparticles (NPs) in the cancer immunotherapy as the carrier of immunotherapeutic agents and as the adjuvants to stimulate immune systems to eradicate cancer
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