SITC vision: Opportunities for deeper understanding of mechanisms of anti-tumor activity, toxicity, and resistance to optimize cancer immunotherapy.

Abstract

Cancer immunotherapy has radically changed the management of several malignancies, and dozens of agents have been approved in the past 15 years. While these advances have changed the field, many challenges lie ahead and must be addressed if we are to optimize the management of cancer with these approaches. A more comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms of action, toxicity, and resistance is needed to guide the next decade of cancer immunotherapy development. To this end, members of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer met and identified challenges and opportunities to improve cancer immunotherapy by focusing on the mechanisms by which the specific agents work, the mechanisms of how they cause adverse effects, and the mechanisms of resistance that limit the effectiveness of these agents. The priorities of this effort were to (1) level set by describing the state of the field; (2) describe what is known about how these agents work, fail to work, and cause side effects as well as the key knowledge gaps in these areas and associated challenges for addressing them; (3) provide a patient perspective to highlight the importance of this work to the community most affected; (4) look ahead to the future by identifying and describing prioritized opportunities that the field may focus on to expand the knowledge base of the field and optimize the management of cancer with immunotherapy.