Nanomedicine sheds new light on cancer immunotherapy

Abstract

Cancer immunotherapy comprising of immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapy, immune cell therapies, cancer vaccines and many others represents a profound arsenal in the fight against different types of cancers. However, their overall clinical objective response rates, particularly against most solid tumors, are still not sufficient owing to a variety of reasons including the heterogenous expression of tumor antigens, limited tumor infiltration of effector immune cells, acquired tumor immunosuppression and some other factors. In recent years, various nanomedicine strategies have been proposed to assist cancer immunotherapy via distinct mechanisms, presenting new promises in many published studies. This perspective will thus provide a brief overview regarding the development of nanomedicine platforms for improving cancer immunotherapy.

Keywords

• cancer immunotherapy
• in situ cancer vaccine
• nanomedicine
• nanovaccine
• tumor microenvironment