Combining chemotherapy with immunotherapy:from bench to bedside

VernacularTitle:肿瘤化疗联合免疫治疗从理论基础到临床实践
Author: Xiaoyan LIU
Keywords: cancer; chemotherapy; immunotherapy; synergistic activity
From: Chinese Journal of Clinical Oncology 2017;44(9):452-458
CountryChina
Language:Chinese
Abstract: Chemotherapy has been the cornerstone of cancer treatment for decades. However, albeit remarkable, the response to chemotherapy is generally short-lived. With deepened understanding of cancer immunology, resurgence was recently witnessed in the field of cancer immunotherapy. Unlike chemotherapy, immunotherapy induces a relatively mild but stable response. Accumulating evi-dence reveals that apart from chemotherapy's direct cytotoxic activity, chemotherapy exerts immune-potentiating effects by increas-ing the immunogenicity of tumor cells or by disrupting the tumor-induced immunosuppression and altering the immune microenviron-ment. The latter mechanism serves as the basis for the combined use of chemotherapy and immunotherapy. In this review, we exam-ine the rationale for combinatorial therapy in accordance with the current understanding on tumor immunity and newly discovered im-mune-based chemotherapeutic mechanisms. We further discuss the available preclinical and clinical studies on the combination of chemotherapy and immunotherapy for cancer treatment. We aim to provide a framework for further research.