Introduction ■ Cancer immunoediting is the process by which malignant cells evade the immune system—first by incomplete elimination of tumor cells during immunosurveillance, followed by an equilibrium phase, and finally by an immune escape phase. The immune escape phenomenon is…
Introduction ■Cancer immunotherapy has come a long way since its inception centuries ago when, in 1777, the surgeon to the Duke of Kent injected himself with malignant cells in an effort to develop a cancer vaccine. The ability to harness…
Introduction Cancer immunotherapy has a rich history. In the late 19th century, William Coley treated sarcoma patients with intratumoral bacteria and bacterial products and demonstrated tumor shrinkage. Over the years, we have added significantly to the “immunological armament” against cancer.…
Introduction Novel agents have revolutionized the treatment of cancer, resulting in many benefits for patients. These same agents, however, have been associated with new toxicity profiles compared with traditional chemotherapy. Most of these adverse events have been classified as mild…
Introduction In the past two decades, the field of cancer immunotherapy evolved from a niche specialty to the frontlines of the fight against cancer. Unlike chemotherapy, immunotherapy unleashes the body’s inherent immune system by boosting it and “releasing its breaks.”…
Introduction ■ The origins of immunotherapy can be traced back to the early 1900s when Paul Ehrlich postulated that the host immune system plays a role in the early recognition and elimination of malignant cells. Over the next century, many…
Introduction Cardiotoxicity is one of the worrisome side effects of cancer-directed therapy. Cardiac adverse events can range from mild to severe and vary between classes of targeted agents. Some relevant cardiac adverse events include electrocardiogram (ECG) changes, QT prolongation, hypertension,…
Introduction Targeted therapies are a rapidly expanding group of anticancer drugs, which promise to provide better tolerated and higher efficacy medications compared with conventional systemic chemotherapy. Inhibition of novel pathways or molecules brings about some unexpected and unforeseen adverse effects…
Introduction Prior to the 1990s, cytotoxic chemotherapy was used uniformly for all malignancies. This resulted in heterogeneous responses even within a specific tumor type. As insight was gained about the role of driver mutations (key alterations in the oncogenic addiction…
Introduction Targeted therapies are a category of drugs that inhibit cancer by interfering with specific molecules involved in the growth, progression, and spread of malignant cells. Targeted therapies act on specific molecular targets, whereas most standard chemotherapies act on many…