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Review
. 2017 Jan;131(1):1-9.
doi: 10.1007/s11060-016-2299-2. Epub 2016 Oct 14.

Advances in immunotherapy for the treatment of glioblastoma

Amanda Tivnan  1 , Tatjana Heilinger  2   3 , Ed C Lavelle  4   5   6 , Jochen H M Prehn  2
Affiliations
Review

Advances in immunotherapy for the treatment of glioblastoma

Amanda Tivnan et al. J Neurooncol. 2017 Jan.

Abstract

Glioblastoma (GBM) is an aggressive brain tumour, associated with extremely poor prognosis and although there have been therapeutic advances, treatment options remain limited. This review focuses on the use of immunotherapy, harnessing the power of the host's immune system to reject cancer cells. Key challenges in glioma specific immunotherapy as with many other cancers are the limited immunogenicity of the cancer cells and the immunosuppressive environment of the tumour. Although specific antigens have been identified in several cancers; brain tumours, such as GBM, are considered poorly immunogenic. However, as detailed in this review, strategies aimed at circumventing these challenges are showing promise for GBM treatment; including identification of glioma specific antigens and endogenous immune cell activation in an attempt to overcome the immunosuppressive environment which is associated with GBM tumours. An up-to-date summary of current Phase I/II and ongoing Phase III GBM immunotherapy clinical trials is provided in addition to insights into promising preclinical approaches which are focused predominantly on increased induction of Type 1 helper T cell (Th1) immune responses within patients.

Keywords: Brain cancer; Glioblastoma; Immunotherapy; Vaccines.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author(s) declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Glioblastoma immunotherapy approaches. Immunotherapy is the process by which the host immune system is modulated in an attempt to generate a tumour-targeted response. These techniques, as outlined in the graphical summary above, include adoptive cell therapy (ACT) whereby the host immune system is stimulated to elicit a response, immunovirotherapy which involves the use of oncolytic viruses which are only capable of replication within cancer cells with subsequent cell lysis. Peptide vaccinations are developed through either tumour isolated, or synthesised, peptide fragment which, when combined with carrier protein adjuvants, are then used to vaccinate the host against a particular antigen; and finally dendritic cell-based therapy whereby tumour specific antigens (TSA) and tumour associated antigens (TAAs) are used to direct a dendritic cell-prompted immune response. Several of these techniques have entered Phase III clinical trials with respect to glioblastoma treatment
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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