Current State of Immunotherapy for Treatment of Glioblastoma

Curr Treat Options Oncol. 2019 Feb 21;20(3):24. doi: 10.1007/s11864-019-0619-4.

Abstract

At this time, there are no FDA-approved immune therapies for glioblastoma (GBM) despite many unique therapies currently in clinical trials. GBM is a highly immunosuppressive tumor and there are limitations to a safe immune response in the central nervous system. To date, there have been several failures of phase 3 immune therapy clinical trials in GBM. These trials have targeted single components of an antitumor immune response. Learning from these failures, the future of immunotherapy for GBM appears most hopeful for combination of immune therapies to overcome the profound immunosuppression of this disease. Understanding biomarkers for appropriate patient selection as well as tumor progression are necessary for implementation of immunotherapy for GBM.

Keywords: CAR-T; Checkpoint inhibitors; Glioblastoma; Immunotherapy; Vaccine.

Publication types

  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Antineoplastic Agents / therapeutic use*
  • Biomarkers, Tumor
  • Brain Neoplasms / drug therapy*
  • Brain Neoplasms / pathology
  • Cancer Vaccines
  • Clinical Trials as Topic
  • Glioblastoma / drug therapy*
  • Glioblastoma / pathology
  • Humans
  • Immunotherapy* / trends
  • Molecular Targeted Therapy* / trends
  • Patient Selection
  • Prognosis
  • Treatment Outcome

Substances

  • Antineoplastic Agents
  • Biomarkers, Tumor
  • Cancer Vaccines