Toward integrative cancer immunotherapy: targeting the tumor microenvironment
The development of cancer has historically been attributed to genomic alterations of normal host cells. Accordingly, the aim of most traditional cancer therapies has been to destroy the transformed cells themselves. There is now widespread appreciation that the progressive growth and metastatic spre...
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BioMed Central
2012
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| Online Access: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3341195/ |
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pubmed-33411952012-05-02 Toward integrative cancer immunotherapy: targeting the tumor microenvironment Emens, Leisha A Silverstein, Samuel C Khleif, Samir Marincola, Francesco M Galon, Jérôme Editorial The development of cancer has historically been attributed to genomic alterations of normal host cells. Accordingly, the aim of most traditional cancer therapies has been to destroy the transformed cells themselves. There is now widespread appreciation that the progressive growth and metastatic spread of cancer cells requires the cooperation of normal host cells (endothelial cells, fibroblasts, other mesenchymal cells, and immune cells), both local to, and at sites distant from, the site at which malignant transformation occurs. It is the balance of these cellular interactions that both determines the natural history of the cancer, and influences its response to therapy. This active tumor-host dynamic has stimulated interest in the tumor microenvironment as a key target for both cancer diagnosis and therapy. Recent data has demonstrated both that the presence of CD8+ T cells within a tumor is associated with a good prognosis, and that the eradication of all malignantly transformed cells within a tumor requires that the intra-tumoral concentration of cytolytically active CD8+ effector T cells remain above a critical concentration until every tumor cell has been killed. These findings have stimulated two initiatives in the field of cancer immunotherapy that focus on the tumor microenvironment. The first is the development of the immune score as part of the routine diagnostic and prognostic evaluation of human cancers, and the second is the development of combinatorial immune-based therapies that reduce tumor-associated immune suppression to unleash pre-existing or therapeutically-induced tumor immunity. In support of these efforts, the Society for the Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) is sponsoring a workshop entitled "Focus on the Target: The Tumor Microenvironment" to be held October 24-25, 2012 in Bethesda, Maryland. This meeting should support development of the immune score, and result in a position paper highlighting opportunities for the development of integrative cancer immunotherapies that sculpt the tumor microenvironment to promote definitive tumor rejection. BioMed Central 2012-04-10 /pmc/articles/PMC3341195/ /pubmed/22490302 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1479-5876-10-70 Text en Copyright ©2012 Emens et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| repository_type |
Open Access Journal |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
US National Center for Biotechnology Information |
| building |
NCBI PubMed |
| collection |
Online Access |
| language |
English |
| format |
Online |
| author |
Emens, Leisha A Silverstein, Samuel C Khleif, Samir Marincola, Francesco M Galon, Jérôme |
| spellingShingle |
Emens, Leisha A Silverstein, Samuel C Khleif, Samir Marincola, Francesco M Galon, Jérôme Toward integrative cancer immunotherapy: targeting the tumor microenvironment |
| author_facet |
Emens, Leisha A Silverstein, Samuel C Khleif, Samir Marincola, Francesco M Galon, Jérôme |
| author_sort |
Emens, Leisha A |
| title |
Toward integrative cancer immunotherapy: targeting the tumor microenvironment |
| title_short |
Toward integrative cancer immunotherapy: targeting the tumor microenvironment |
| title_full |
Toward integrative cancer immunotherapy: targeting the tumor microenvironment |
| title_fullStr |
Toward integrative cancer immunotherapy: targeting the tumor microenvironment |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Toward integrative cancer immunotherapy: targeting the tumor microenvironment |
| title_sort |
toward integrative cancer immunotherapy: targeting the tumor microenvironment |
| description |
The development of cancer has historically been attributed to genomic alterations of normal host cells. Accordingly, the aim of most traditional cancer therapies has been to destroy the transformed cells themselves. There is now widespread appreciation that the progressive growth and metastatic spread of cancer cells requires the cooperation of normal host cells (endothelial cells, fibroblasts, other mesenchymal cells, and immune cells), both local to, and at sites distant from, the site at which malignant transformation occurs. It is the balance of these cellular interactions that both determines the natural history of the cancer, and influences its response to therapy. This active tumor-host dynamic has stimulated interest in the tumor microenvironment as a key target for both cancer diagnosis and therapy. Recent data has demonstrated both that the presence of CD8+ T cells within a tumor is associated with a good prognosis, and that the eradication of all malignantly transformed cells within a tumor requires that the intra-tumoral concentration of cytolytically active CD8+ effector T cells remain above a critical concentration until every tumor cell has been killed. These findings have stimulated two initiatives in the field of cancer immunotherapy that focus on the tumor microenvironment. The first is the development of the immune score as part of the routine diagnostic and prognostic evaluation of human cancers, and the second is the development of combinatorial immune-based therapies that reduce tumor-associated immune suppression to unleash pre-existing or therapeutically-induced tumor immunity. In support of these efforts, the Society for the Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) is sponsoring a workshop entitled "Focus on the Target: The Tumor Microenvironment" to be held October 24-25, 2012 in Bethesda, Maryland. This meeting should support development of the immune score, and result in a position paper highlighting opportunities for the development of integrative cancer immunotherapies that sculpt the tumor microenvironment to promote definitive tumor rejection. |
| publisher |
BioMed Central |
| publishDate |
2012 |
| url |
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3341195/ |
| _version_ |
1611526117309546496 |