title: Cancer immunotherapy: accomplishments to date and future promise.
abstract: Cancer remains a devastating disease as existing therapies are too often ineffective and toxicities remain unacceptably high. Immunotherapies for cancer offer the promise of the specificity and memory of the immune system against malignant cells to achieve durable cure with minimal toxicity. Beginning with the success of bone marrow transplantation for blood-borne cancers, and the more recent development of monoclonal antibody therapeutics for a variety of tumors, immunotherapies are already among the most successful class of treatments for cancer. Greater understanding of immunoregulatory mechanisms and improved techniques for immune cell manipulation and engineering have led to new immunomodulatory approaches and cell-based therapies for cancer that have generated great excitement within the biomedical community. As these technologies continue to improve, and as new approaches for harnessing the power and specificity of the immune system are developed, immunotherapies will play an increasingly important role in the treatment of cancer. Here, we review the history of immunotherapies for cancer and discuss existing and emerging immunotherapy technologies that hope to translate the promise of immunotherapy into clinical reality.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, New Jersey Medical School, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, USA.
authors.forename: Karim Y
authors.initials: KY
authors.lastname: Helmy
authors.forename: Shyam A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Patel
authors.forename: George R
authors.initials: GR
authors.lastname: Nahas
authors.forename: Pranela
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Rameshwar
mesh_terms: D019264:Adoptive Transfer; D000818:Animals; D000906:Antibodies / Q000627:therapeutic use; D005544:Forecasting; D015316:Genetic Therapy; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D007166:Immunosuppressive Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D007167:Immunotherapy / Q000266:history / Q000379:methods / Q000639:trends; D016246:Lymphocytes, Tumor-Infiltrating / Q000276:immunology; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy*; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D019139:Tumor Escape
chemical_list: D000906:Antibodies; D007166:Immunosuppressive Agents