Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2017 Sep;9(11):943-949.
doi: 10.2217/imt-2017-0044.

Immunotherapy of cancer: targeting cancer during active disease or during dormancy?

Syed Ammer Shah  1   2   3 , Melika Zarei  4 , Saeed H Manjili  5 , Georgi Guruli  1   2 , Xiang-Yang Wang  2   6 , Masoud H Manjili  2   7
Affiliations
Review

Immunotherapy of cancer: targeting cancer during active disease or during dormancy?

Syed Ammer Shah et al. Immunotherapy. 2017 Sep.

Abstract

Immunotherapeutic targeting of advanced stage cancers has prolonged the survival of cancer patients, yet its curative efficacy is limited due to tumor immunoediting and escape. On the other hand, human vaccines have been able to eradicate smallpox and control several other infectious diseases. The success has resulted from the administration of vaccines in prophylactic settings, or during latency periods in order to protect an individual during future exposure to the disease rather than curing an established disease. Therefore, administration of immunotherapy at the right time is the key to success. However, instead of focusing on the prevention of cancer, current cancer immunotherapies are often being used in a therapeutic setting with the goal of eliminating tumor cells. The present review of evidence related to cancer immunotherapeutics suggests that immunotherapeutic targeting of tumor dormancy could be more promising than targeting of advanced stage disease to achieve a cure for cancer.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This work was supported by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs through the Breast Cancer Research Program under Award No. W81XWH-14–1–0087, and partly supported by pilot funding from the VCU Massey Cancer Center supported, in part, with funding from NIH/NCI Cancer Center Support Grant P30 CA016059. Opinions, interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the US Department of Defense. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

References

    1. Payne KK, Keim RC, Graham L, et al. Tumor-reactive immune cells protect against metastatic tumor and induce immunoediting of indolent but not quiescent tumor cells. J. Leukoc. Biol. 2016;100(3):625–635. - PMC - PubMed
    1. MITCHISON NA. Studies on the immunological response to foreign tumor transplants in the mouse. I. The role of lymph node cells in conferring immunity by adoptive transfer. J. Exp. Med. 1955;102(2):157–177. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Muul LM, Spiess PJ, Director EP, Rosenberg SA. Identification of specific cytolytic immune responses against autologous tumor in humans bearing malignant melanoma. J. Immunol. 1987;138(3):989–995. - PubMed
    1. Dudley ME, Wunderlich JR, Robbins PF, et al. Cancer regression and autoimmunity in patients after clonal repopulation with antitumor lymphocytes. Science. 2002;298(5594):850–854. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Goff SL, Dudley ME, Citrin DE, et al. Randomized, prospective evaluation comparing intensity of lymphodepletion before adoptive transfer of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes for patients with metastatic melanoma. J. Clin. Oncol. 2016;34(20):2389–2397. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms

Substances

LinkOut - more resources