Current advances in immunotherapy for cancer

Abstract

Recent advances in cancer immunotherapy, including immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, have significantly improved the clinical management of various cancers. ICIs, such as PD-1/PD-L1 and CTLA-4 inhibitors, enhance the body's immune response against tumors, offering substantial benefits in cancers like melanoma, non-small-cell lung cancer, and lymphoma. CAR-T cell therapy has demonstrated remarkable efficacy in hematologic malignancies, particularly B-cell leukemias and lymphomas, through the genetic modification of T-cells to target tumor-specific antigens.Despite these successes, several challenges remain, particularly in the treatment of solid tumors. The heterogeneity of tumor antigens, the presence of physical barriers that impede CAR-T cell infiltration, and the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment limit the effectiveness of these therapies. To address these issues, ongoing research is exploring combination therapies that integrate ICIs with CAR-T cell therapy, improved CAR-T cell engineering, and strategies to modulate the tumor microenvironment to enhance immune cell infiltration and function.