Tackling resistance to cancer immunotherapy: What do we know?

Abstract

Cancer treatment has evolved tremendously in the last few decades. Immunotherapy has been considered to be the forth pillar in cancer treatment in addition to conventional surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. Though immunotherapy has resulted in impressive response, it is generally limited to a small subset of patients. Understanding the mechanisms of resistance toward cancer immunotherapy may shed new light to counter that resistance. In this review, we highlighted and summarized two major hurdles (recognition and attack) of cancer elimination by the immune system. The mechanisms of failure of some available immunotherapy strategies were also described. Moreover, the significance role of immune compartment for various established cancer treatments were also elucidated in this review. Then, the mechanisms of combinatorial treatment of various conventional cancer treatment with immunotherapy were discussed. Finally, a strategy to improve immune cancer killing by characterizing cancer immune landscape, then devising treatment based on that cancer immune landscape was put forward.