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Published on: February 5, 2020
Vaccination-enabled immune readiness for checkpoint blockade
Jhommara Bautista1, Andrés López-Cortés1
1Cancer Research Group (CRG), Faculty of Medicine, Universidad de Las Américas, Quito, Ecuador.
Immune checkpoint inhibitors fail in many cancers because they require pre-existing anti-tumour immunity. Enhancing "immune readiness" through vaccination can overcome this resistance, improving cancer immunotherapy outcomes.
Area of Science:
- Immunology
- Oncology
- Cancer Therapy
Background:
- Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) revolutionized cancer therapy by enabling durable tumor control via immune modulation.
- However, primary resistance to ICB is common in solid tumors, as ICB amplifies existing immunity rather than initiating it.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce and define
Main Methods:
- Conceptual framework development.
- Literature synthesis.
- Immunological pathway analysis.
Main Results:
- Immune readiness, a host-tumour state involving innate sensing, myeloid and dendritic cell activation, antigen presentation, lymphocyte priming, and inflammatory trafficking, is crucial for ICB efficacy.
- Absence of immune readiness renders ICB ineffective, irrespective of tumor antigenicity or checkpoint expression.
- Therapeutic vaccination can be strategically employed to induce, amplify, or synchronize immune readiness.
Conclusions:
- Immune readiness is a unifying framework explaining primary resistance to ICB.
- Vaccination strategies can engineer immune readiness, creating the necessary immunological substrate for ICB.
- Integrating vaccination with ICB offers a coherent approach to overcome resistance and broaden cancer immunotherapy's impact.
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