Immunotherapy-a review on the new horizons of cancer-fighting

Trabalho realizado na Escola Superior de Ciências da Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Vitória EMESCAM. 1. Escola Superior de Ciências da Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Vitória EMESCAM. Graduando em Medicina. Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-00017350-4910. Email:aldrenf@terra.com.br. 2. Escola Superior de Ciências da Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Vitória EMESCAM. Graduanda em Medicina. Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-00015042-2680. Email: biancareismed@gmail.com. 3. Escola Superior de Ciências da Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Vitória EMESCAM. Graduanda em Medicina. Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-00017057-792X. Email: bruncarv@gmail.com. 4. Escola Superior de Ciências da Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Vitória EMESCAM. Graduando em Medicina. Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-00015960-0156. Email: carolinasadovsky@gmail.com. 5. Instituto de Ensino Superior do Espírito Santo Faculdade Multivix. Professor e Coordenador de Pesquisa e Extensão. Orcid: https://orcid.org/00000003-1252-0145. Email: edneab@gmail.com. Endereço para correspondência: Aldren T. Falçoni Junior. EMESCAM Avenida Reta da Penha, 2190, Santa Luiza. Vitória, ES. CEP 29045-402. ABSTRACT: Introduction: Immunotherapy is progressing to become an expressive tool in the fight against cancer, from manipulating the immune system of patients to eliminate tumors. Many institutions have invested in research in the field, since the immunotherapeutic approaches have advantages over conventional therapies, in addition to presenting potential for hitherto intractable cancers. Objective: To define some mechanisms based on immunotherapy, in addition to citing their classes and in which types of cancer these therapies have been used. Method: This is a literature review of the selection of articles from the last 10 years in the PubMed database with the keywords “Immunotherapy, Adoptive” combined with the term “Lymphocytes, Tumor-Infiltrating” and “Immunotherapy, Adoptive”, combined with “Neoplasms”. Results: The term immunotherapy represents a vast class of treatments based on the Immunity Cycle of Cancer Checkpoint. Inhibitors, for example, block immunosuppressive mechanisms performed by the tumor. In another instance is adoptive cell therapy, which consists of extracting and training T-lymphocytes from the patients themselves to identify and combat specific antigens of the tumor tissue. Also noteworthy are the vaccines, which use attenuated and genetically modified tumor cells to stimulate the immune response. These therapies are being studied in several types of cancers, showing encouraging results in melanomas, breast cancers, glioblastomas, hematologic cancers, like the metastatic myeloma, among others. In addition, the combination of immunotherapeutic techniques with conventional therapies is also a promising alternative. However, barriers to consolidating a more efficient and lower-cost production method still limit the mass use of some of these therapies. Conclusion: Many immunotherapeutic approaches are still experimental and their comprehensive application is still uncertain, however, the results obtained by the clinical studies demonstrate the exciting perspective for this new horizon in the fight against cancer.