Title:Clinical Combinatorial Treatments Based on Cancer Vaccines: Combination
with Checkpoint Inhibitors and Beyond
Volume: 23
Issue: 11
Author(s): Mojdeh Soltani, Lyudmila V. Savvateeva, Mazdak Ganjalikhani-Hakemi and Andrey A. Zamyatnin*
Affiliation:
- Institute of Molecular Medicine, Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, Moscow, Russia
- Belozersky Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
- Department of Biotechnology, Sirius University of Science and Technology, Sochi, Russia
- Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, UK
Keywords:
Cancer vaccine, immune checkpoint inhibitors, combinatorial therapies, therapeutic cancer, tumors, carcinogenesis.
Abstract: The efficacy of the cancer vaccine is influenced by several factors, but one of the most
important is the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, which can attenuate treatment effects.
The combination of therapeutic cancer vaccines with other immunotherapies or conventional
therapeutic approaches can promote vaccine efficacy by increasing immune surveillance and tumor
immunogenicity and modulating immune escape in the tumor microenvironment. Inhibitory checkpoints
have a significant role in the modulation of anticancer immune responses, and according to
preclinical and clinical trials, administration of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) in combination
with cancer vaccines can markedly improve their therapeutic effects, considering their low clinical
efficacy. In addition, these combinatorial therapies have acceptable safety and minimal additional
toxicity compared to single-agent cancer vaccines or ICIs. In this review, based on the results of
previous studies, we introduce and discuss treatments that can be combined with therapeutic cancer
vaccines to improve their potency. Our major focus is on checkpoint blockade therapies, which are
the most well-known and applicable immunotherapies.