Perspectives in immunotherapy of lung cancer

TY - JOUR

T1 - Perspectives in immunotherapy of lung cancer

AU - Hersh, Evan M.

AU - Gutterman, Jordan U.

AU - Mavligit, Giora M.

N1 - Funding Information: Carcinoma of the lung is the most prevalent and one of the most aggressive types of human cancer. The 5 year survival in the entire group of lung cancer patients is approximately 5 %. Even in the patients with the best prognosis, those with surgically resectable stage I disease, the 5-year survival is only in the range of 40% (99). Conventional treatment, namely surgery and radiotherapy, has reached its limits of effectiveness and major further advances in either of these therapy areas seems unlikely (79). Chemotherapy offers many promising leads at the moment, but response rates of patients with established metastatic disease are still under 50% (47). Conventional treatment for carcinoma of the lung is also severely limited because of the high incidence of already existing regional or distant metastases at the time of first symptoms and diagnosis (81). Immunotherapy for all types of human malignancy, including lung cancer, is in its infancy and no convincing effective trials of immunotherapy in lung cancer have yet been carried out. However, during the last 25 years a scientific basis and a rationale for immunotherapy have been developed. These are based on a large number of animal and human experiments. In this review, we will discuss some features of the scientific basis for the immunotherapy of lung cancer. This will include specific features of the immunological reactivity of lung cancer patients of relevance to immunotherapy, early attempts at immunotherapy of other types of cancer with relevance to lung cancer, the results of some preliminary trials of immunotherapy of lung cancer itself, a scheme for the rational development of this field and finally some promising new approaches for the future. On the basis of the findings of the relationship between immunocompetence and prognosis in cancer, the known immunosuppressive effects of conventional treatment, ~'Supported by Contract NOI-CB-33888 and Grant CA-05831, from the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, and Grant ACS-C1 -22 from the American Cancer Society. 65 the demonstration of specific tumor immunity in lung cancer and the encouraging results of preliminary cancer immunotherapy trials, the investigation of immunotherapy in lung cancer seems justified at this time. Immunotherapy of lung cancer is also of compelling interest because of the poor prognosis after surgery and radiotherapy, and because of the increasing promise that chemotherapy can significantly reduce the tumor burden in lung cancer.

PY - 1974/3

Y1 - 1974/3

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0016315403&partnerID=8YFLogxK

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U2 - 10.1016/S0305-7372(74)80011-3

DO - 10.1016/S0305-7372(74)80011-3

M3 - Article

C2 - 4471091

AN - SCOPUS:0016315403

SN - 0305-7372

VL - 1

SP - 65

EP - 80

JO - Cancer Treatment Reviews

JF - Cancer Treatment Reviews

IS - 1

ER -