Immunotherapy of Primary Brain Tumors: Facts and Hopes

The field of cancer immunotherapy has made exciting progress for some cancer types in recent years. However, recent failures of late phase clinical trials evaluating checkpoint blockade in glioblastoma (GBM) patients represent continued challenges for brain cancer immunotherapy. This is likely due to multiple factors, including but not limited to marked genetic and antigenic heterogeneity, relatively low mutational loads and paucity of GBM-infiltrating T cells. We review recent and ongoing studies targeting the checkpoint molecules as monotherapy or in combination with other modalities, and discuss the mechanisms underlying the unresponsiveness of GBM to single modality immunotherapy approaches. We also discuss other novel immunotherapy approaches that may promote T cell responses and overcome the "cold tumor" status of GBM, including oncolytic viruses and adoptive T cell therapy.

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