Advances In Cancer Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy has transformed cancer treatment by harnessing a patient's own immune system to fight against their own malignant cells. Replacing chemotherapy and radiation strategies to directly target the tumor, immunotherapy using neoantigens creates a stronger and more enduring response. This review examines the three most common immunotherapies: Chimeric Antigen Receptor T cell therapy, Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocyte therapy, and Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation, analyzing the process, results, effectiveness, disadvantages, and future applications. A literature review of FDA approvals, historical studies, and advancements was used to evaluate each therapy. Advancing from T-cell therapy, CAR T cell therapy has shown strong response rates of 68–90% in pediatric B-cell cancers and strong remissions, but it presents risks such as cytokine release syndrome, B cell aplasia, and neurotoxicity. While only applied to metastatic myeloma, TIL therapy shows response rates of 34–72% , though its complexity, toxicity, and cost are current limitations of this therapy. HCT, mainly used for hematologic cancers like acute myeloid leukemia, has prominent response rates of 45–60%, but difficulty in finding a donor and graft-vs-host disease remain challenging. Findings show that immunotherapies have the potential to be very effective cancer treatment strategies.