title: Immunologic approaches to cancer prevention-current status, challenges, and future perspectives.
abstract: The potential of the immune system to recognize and reject tumors has been investigated for more than a century. However, only recently impressive breakthroughs in cancer immunotherapy have been seen with the use of checkpoint inhibitors. The experience with various immune-based strategies in the treatment of late cancer highlighted the importance of negative impact advanced disease has on immunity. Consequently, use of immune modulation for cancer prevention rather than therapy has gained considerable attention, with many promising results seen already in preclinical and early clinical studies. Although not without challenges, these results provide much excitement and optimism that successful cancer immunoprevention could be within our reach. In this review we will discuss the current state of predominantly primary and secondary cancer immunoprevention, relevant research, potential barriers, and future directions.
authors.affiliation: Division of Cancer Prevention, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA. Electronic address: wojtowim@mail.nih.gov.
authors.forename: Malgorzata E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Wojtowicz
authors.affiliation: Division of Cancer Prevention, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
authors.forename: Barbara K
authors.initials: BK
authors.lastname: Dunn
authors.affiliation: Division of Cancer Prevention, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
authors.forename: Asad
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Umar
mesh_terms: D056704:Adaptive Immunity; D000818:Animals; D000951:Antigens, Neoplasm / Q000276:immunology*; D001324:Autoantigens / Q000276:immunology; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000276:immunology* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D005260:Female; D016368:Frameshift Mutation; D017325:Hepatitis B Vaccines / Q000627:therapeutic use; D006801:Humans; D007113:Immunity, Innate; D007157:Immunologic Surveillance; D007167:Immunotherapy; D007768:Lactalbumin / Q000276:immunology; D060785:Mammaglobin A / Q000276:immunology; D010190:Pancreatic Neoplasms / Q000276:immunology*; D053918:Papillomavirus Vaccines / Q000627:therapeutic use; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases / Q000276:immunology; D019098:Telomerase / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors / Q000276:immunology
chemical_list: D000951:Antigens, Neoplasm; D001324:Autoantigens; D017325:Hepatitis B Vaccines; D007768:Lactalbumin; D060785:Mammaglobin A; D053918:Papillomavirus Vaccines; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases; D019098:Telomerase; C508053:ERBB2 protein, human; C509186:TERT protein, human
keywords: Cancer immunoprevention; Cancer vaccines; Tumor antigens; Tumor immunity