A review of glioblastoma immunotherapy

Introduction Glioblastoma is a very aggressive cancer with dismal prognosis despite standard of care including surgical resection, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy. There is interest in applying immunotherapy to glioblastoma as this modality has demonstrated remarkable improvements in the management of several solid tumors including melanoma, renal cell carcinoma, and non-small cell lung cancer. This review aims to provide an overview of the current state of glioblastoma immunotherapy. Methods Literature search was performed on PubMed between 1961 and 2020. Results Initial clinical trials of checkpoint inhibitors and vaccine therapy for glioblastoma have largely been disappointing for both primary and recurrent glioblastoma. This failure has been attributed to glioblastoma's highly immunosuppressive environment and multiple mechanisms of therapy resistance including high tumor heterogeneity, low mutational burden, systemic immunosuppression, and local immune dysfunction. Conclusions Current clinical trials are exploring combination therapy and novel treatment strategies beyond immune checkpoint therapies and vaccine therapy such as CAR T cells. There is also an effort to establish synergy between immunotherapy and current standard of care. Furthermore, recent advances in personalized neoantigen vaccines suggest a shift towards personalized, patient-specific GBM treatment.

Automated summary

Current immunotherapy treatments for glioblastoma, including checkpoint inhibitors and vaccine therapy, have shown disappointing results in clinical trials due to the highly immunosuppressive environment and therapy resistance mechanisms of the tumor. Ongoing research is focusing on exploring combination therapies and novel treatment strategies beyond immune checkpoint therapies, as well as establishing synergy between immunotherapy and current standard of care to improve treatment outcomes. Recent advances in personalized neoantigen vaccines suggest a shift towards personalized, patient-specific treatment for glioblastoma.