Emerging Role and Future Directions of Immunotherapy in Advanced Ovarian Cancer

Abstract

Clinical progress in cancer immunotherapy has been slow; however, within the last 5 years, breakthrough successes have brought immunotherapy to the forefront in cancer therapy. Promising results have been observed in solid tumors and hematologic malignancies. Most treatment modalities have shown limited efficacy as monotherapy. The complex nature of cancer and the immunosuppressive microenvironment emphasizes the need to personalize immunotherapy by manipulating the patient's own immune system. For successful and long-lasting cure of cancer, a multimodal approach is essential, combining antitumor cell therapy with manipulation of multiple pathways in the tumor microenvironment to ameliorate tumor-induced immunosuppression.

Keywords: Adoptive T-cell therapy; Cancer testis antigens; Cancer vaccines; Checkpoint blockade; IDO inhibition; Immunotherapy; Neoantigens; Oncolytic virotherapy.

Figure 1.

Expression pattern of 162 CT genes across normal tissues from GTeX and patient tumor samples from TCGA. RNASeq data were obtained from GTeX (normal tissues) or TCGA PANCancer study (tumors). The median expression per each CT gene was calculated across all patients in a specific tissue. Each cell in the heatmap indicates the median expression of a CT gene in the tissue indicated at the bottom of the figure. Red cells indicate high expression and black cells low expression levels. From Want MY, Lugade AA, Battaglia S, et al. Nature of tumour rejection antigens in ovarian cancer. Immunology 2018; with permission.