Abstract
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer related deaths globally, making it a major health concern. The lung’s permissive rich microenvironment is ideal for supporting outgrowth of disseminated tumors from pre-existing extra-pulmonary malignancies usually resulting in high mortality. Tumors occurring in the lungs are difficult to treat, necessitating the need for the development of advanced treatment modalities against primary tumors and secondary lung metastasis. In this review, we explore the pulmonary route as an attractive drug delivery approach to treat lung tumors. We also discuss the potential of pulmonary delivery of cancer vaccine vectors to induce mucosal immunity capable of preventing the seeding of tumors in the lung.
Highlights
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported lung cancer to be the most common cause of cancer deaths worldwide, contributing to 1.76 million deaths in 2018 alone (Ferlay et al, 2019)
We provide a summary of current treatments and prospective future directions to improve the management of tumors that occur in the lungs either as a primary tumor or metastasis from extra-pulmonary tumors
In a phase II clinical trial, ado-transtuzumab ematasine was effective in patients with HER2-mutant lung cancers Pembrolizumab has supplanted cytotoxic chemotherapy as first line therapy for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumor proportion score of programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) is 50% or more
Summary
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported lung cancer to be the most common cause of cancer deaths worldwide, contributing to 1.76 million deaths in 2018 alone (Ferlay et al, 2019). The selection of an appropriate vaccine vector capable of pulmonary delivery of antigens to dendritic cells in the lung and regional lymph nodes may be helpful in generating a robust mucosal immunity in the lung that can eliminate a primary lung tumor or prevent the seeding of an existing extra-primary tumor to the lung.
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