Rapid Advances in Immunotherapy to Treat Cancer

Abstract

Immunotherapy is now the fourth pillar of cancer therapy, with surgery, radiation, and traditional chemotherapy being the remaining pillars. Over the past decade, enthusiasm for immunotherapy has increased because of, in part, data showing that it consistently improves overall survival in select patients with historically refractory cancers. This issue covers various aspects of immunotherapy ranging from use of 1) chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells to treat patients with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia; 2) population pharmacokinetic/dynamic modeling to develop new immune checkpoint inhibitors; and 3) simulations of existing population pharmacokinetic models of immunotherapy to minimize waste without compromising exposure and efficacy.