Immunotherapy as an adjunct to surgery in the treatment of cancer

Abstract

A review of results obtained from numerous clinical trials of immunotherapy for various histological types of cancer serves to emphasize the many discrepancies in the various protocols. Even so, adjuvant immunotherapy in both man and animals has been shown to be relatively nontoxic and to have systemic activity. Definitive results must await long-term follow-up of patients, although in general some therapeutic benefit has been obtained by patients with melanoma and by selected patients with carcinoma of the lung. Adjuvant immunotherapy trials for other types of cancer are still in the preliminary phases. Because therapeutic benefit has not been definitely established, this treatment must he considered highly experimental. Clearly, adjuvant immunotherapy in its present form is not a panacea, but when criteria for methodology, immunologic agents, route, and schedule of administration have been thoroughly identified, it may prove to be a most beneficial adjunctive treatment for selected patients with cancer.

Hemangiopericytoma: A clinicopathologic and ultrastructure study

“…Patients in younger age groups and patients previously untreated have a slightly higher response rate, indicating that an earlier use of this regimen may be more effective in preventing recurrence after surgery or in producing remission in incompletely removed or inoperable tumors [24]. The role of immunotherapy with or without chemotherapy for soft tissue sarcoma is currently being evaluated, and it is too early to assess the results [26]. Immunostimulation with chemical agents, bacteria, and allogenic sarcoma cells has produced few encouraging results, but the success obtained in those studies is far less than that achieved in animal experiments.…”

Polymer-loaded hydrogels serve as depots for lactate and mimic “cold” tumor microenvironments

“…Unlike traditional chemotherapies, immunotherapy engages the body's natural immune response to defeat a malignant mass. 1 Immunotherapeutic approaches are effective by either harnessing the ability of the host immune system to recognize and eliminate cells that display tumor antigens, providing external inflammatory stimuli to induce the destruction of tumor cells in an antigen-specific manner, or by negating the ability of the tumor cells to inhibit host immune cell activation. The latter strategy is particularly attractive as it avoids constitutive activation of immune cells, which can result in collateral damage to healthy tissues.…”