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Immunotherapy for Breast Cancer: Current and Future Strategies

  • Breast Cancer Surgery (J. Tchou, Section Editor)
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Abstract

Purpose of Review

The breast tumor microenvironment is immunosuppressive and is increasingly recognized to play a significant role in tumorigenesis. A deeper understanding of normal and aberrant interactions between malignant and immune cells has allowed researchers to harness the immune system with novel immunotherapy strategies, many of which have shown promise in breast cancer. This review discusses the application of immunotherapy to the treatment of breast cancer.

Recent Findings

Both basic science and clinical trial data are rapidly developing in the use of immunotherapy for breast cancer. The current clinical trial landscape includes therapeutic vaccines, immune checkpoint blockade, antibodies, cytokines, and adoptive cell therapy.

Summary

Despite early failures, the application of immunotherapeutic strategies to the treatment of breast cancer holds promise.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Surgery, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 3400 Civic Center Boulevard, 10th floor South, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    Austin D. Williams & Julia Tchou

  2. The Wistar Institute, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Kyle K. Payne

  3. Department of Immunology, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Tampa, FL, USA

    Christine Hill & Jose Conejo-Garcia

  4. Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Avery D. Posey Jr. & Carl H. June

  5. Perelman School of Medicine, Center for Cellular Immunotherapies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Avery D. Posey Jr. & Carl H. June

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  1. Austin D. Williams
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  2. Kyle K. Payne
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  3. Avery D. Posey Jr.
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  4. Christine Hill
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  5. Jose Conejo-Garcia
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  6. Carl H. June
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  7. Julia Tchou
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Correspondence to Julia Tchou.

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Conflict of interest

Dr. June reports grants from Novartis, outside the submitted work; In addition, Dr. June has a patent 9464140, 9161971, 8975071, 8916381, and 8906682, with royalties paid to Novartis. Carl June is a scientific founder of Tmunity Therapeutics, a biotech dedicated to developing engineered T cells for therapy of cancer, infections and autoimmunity. Dr. June has founders stock from Tmunity. Ms. Hill, Drs. Williams, Posey, Conejo-Garcia, Tchou, and Payne declare no conflicts of interest relevant to this manuscript.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the Topical collection on Breast Cancer Surgery.

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Williams, A.D., Payne, K.K., Posey, A.D. et al. Immunotherapy for Breast Cancer: Current and Future Strategies. Curr Surg Rep 5, 31 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40137-017-0194-1

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