Strategies and Advancements in Harnessing the Immune System for Gastric Cancer Immunotherapy

Abstract

In cancer biology, cells and molecules that form the fundamental components of the tumor microenvironment play a major role in tumor initiation, and progression as well as responses to therapy. Therapeutic approaches that would enable and harness the immune system to target tumor cells mark the future of anticancer therapy as it could induce an immunological memory specific to the tumor type and further enhance tumor regression and relapse-free survival in cancer patients. Gastric cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related mortalities that has a modest survival benefit from existing treatment options. The advent of immunotherapy presents us with new approaches in gastric cancer treatment where adaptive cell therapies, cancer vaccines, and antibody therapies have all been used with promising outcomes. In this paper, we review the current advances and prospects in the gastric cancer immunotherapy. Special focus is laid on new strategies and clinical trials that attempt to enhance the efficacy of various immunotherapeutic modalities in gastric cancer. © 2015 Vinod Vijay Subhash et al.