School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Cancer Immunology Project (CIP), Universal Scientific Education and Research Network (USERN), Tehran, Iran.
Arch Immunol Ther Exp (Warsz). 2021 Feb 27;69(1):3. doi: 10.1007/s00005-021-00604-x.
Cancer is one of the most serious diseases affecting health and the second leading cause of death worldwide. Despite the development of various therapeutic modalities to deal with cancer, limited improvement in overall survival of patients has been yielded. Since there is no certain cure for cancer, detection of premalignant lesions, and prevention of their progression are vital to the decline of high morbidity and mortality of cancer. Among approaches to cancer prevention, immunoprevention has gained further attention in recent years. Deep understanding of the tumor/immune system interplay and successful prevention of virally-induced malignancies by vaccines have paved the way toward broadening cancer immunoprevention application. The identification of tumor antigens in premalignant lesions was the turning point in cancer immunoprevention that led to designing preventive vaccines for various malignancies including multiple myeloma, colorectal, and breast cancer. In addition to vaccines, immune checkpoint inhibitors are also being tested for the prevention of oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), and imiquimod which is an established drug for the prevention of skin SCC, is a non-specific immunomodulator. Herein, to provide a bench-to-bedside understanding of cancer immunoprevention, we will review the role of the immune system in suppression and promotion of tumors, immunoprevention of virally-induced cancers, identification of tumor antigens in premalignant lesions, and clinical advances of cancer immunoprevention.
癌症是影响健康的最严重疾病之一，也是全球第二大致死原因。尽管已经开发了各种治疗方法来应对癌症，但患者的总体生存率仍未见明显改善。由于目前尚无治愈癌症的确切方法，因此检测癌前病变并防止其进展对于降低癌症的高发病率和死亡率至关重要。在癌症预防方法中，免疫预防近年来受到了更多关注。深入了解肿瘤/免疫系统的相互作用以及疫苗成功预防病毒诱导的恶性肿瘤为拓宽癌症免疫预防应用铺平了道路。在癌前病变中鉴定肿瘤抗原是癌症免疫预防的转折点，这导致了针对多种恶性肿瘤（包括多发性骨髓瘤、结直肠癌和乳腺癌）的预防性疫苗的设计。除了疫苗外，免疫检查点抑制剂也正在被测试用于预防口腔鳞状细胞癌（SCC），咪喹莫特是一种用于预防皮肤 SCC 的已确立药物，是一种非特异性免疫调节剂。在此，为了提供对癌症免疫预防的从基础到临床的理解，我们将回顾免疫系统在抑制和促进肿瘤方面的作用、病毒诱导癌症的免疫预防、癌前病变中的肿瘤抗原鉴定以及癌症免疫预防的临床进展。
