Synergetic immunotherapies and current molecular targets in oral cancer treatment

Abstract

The development of cancer therapies depends on identifying exploitable differences between the host immune response and the tumorigenicity. These include anatomic, metabolic, cell cycle kinetics, and presumed antigenic differences between the normal tissue and tumor cells. Immunotherapy also called biologic therapy is a treatment that uses body's own immune system to fight against cancer. Cells such as dendritic cells (DCs), natural killer cells, effector T-cells, and molecules such as complement can be used in various treatment modalities which are segregated as “active” and “passive” based on their ability to engage the host immune system. Further both active and passive immunotherapies can be subdivided into specific and nonspecific approaches. Thus, it is essential to understand the therapeutic approaches and the vaccines made based on the role played by these cells and molecules to circumvent the barriers of tumor microenvironment for an antitumor response. Hence, through this article efforts were made to comprehensively explain the concepts of cancer vaccines and immunotherapies in the treatment of oral cancer.