IO and Chemotherapy

Combination Therapy — A New Clinical Partnership?

Leveraging the immune system to attack cancer represents a novel approach to cancer therapy. Although IO therapies have limitations—such as immune tolerance mechanisms that can temper the immune response and therefore their efficacy—growing data has led to a hypothesis that conventional cancer therapies may also affect the immune system.¹

Do Conventional Cancer Therapies Have Immunostimulatory Effects?

Conventional cancer therapeutics have been considered solely immunosuppressive; while this true for some agents, such as high-dose regimens, growing clinical and experimental evidence suggests that many cytotoxic therapies may be able to stimulate antitumour immune responses.²

The Proposed Immunostimulatory Effects of Conventional Therapies Can Be Broadly Categorized As Follows:²

Adapted from Butterfield et al., 2017.²

References: 1. Prendergast, GC et al. Cancer Immunotherapy: Immune Suppression and Tumor Growth. 2013. (Elsevier Science). 2. Butterfield, LH et al. Cancer Immunotherapy Principles and Practice. 2017. (Springer Publishing Company, Incorporated).