Review of Immunotherapy Efficacy in Virus-associated Cancers
Zeynep İrem Ozay1, Osman Sutcuoglu1, Nuriye Ozdemir1, Ozan Yazici11Department of Medical Oncology, Gazi University Faculty of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey,
Currently, cancer is an important health problem, and virus-related infections have a large share among the factors that have been confirmed to play a role in the etiology of cancer. Until now, virus-associated cancers and nonvirusassociated cancers are treated with the same therapeutic agents. The answer to the question of whether the treatment of virus-associated tumors should be different from the treatment of other tumors has not yet been clearly answered. In addition to protective methods such as vaccination and pretransfusion serological tests, the immune system also plays an important role in eliminating the virus from the body. Besides, viruses escape from the immune system in various ways. Immunotherapies, which have been used in recent years, have brought a different dimension to cancer treatment by eliminating the inhibition of the immune checkpoint and activating T lymphocytes, thus showing an immunostimulating effect. The data showing that these agents, which are used in many types of cancer, may also be effective in virus-related cancers are increasing day by day. In this review, we aimed to evaluate the results of immunotherapies in randomized controlled trials in virus-associated cancers. Immunotherapies can play a role in many issues such as treatment of premalignant lesions and elimination of suppression or immunity after malignancy develops. As we summarized in our study, many randomized controlled clinical studies are ongoing to investigate the effectiveness of immunotherapies in virus-related cancers, and the results of these studies will answer many questions. Keywords: Immunotherapies, immune system, malignancy, virus-associated cancers, virus infections
Cite This Article
Ozay Z, Sutcuoglu O, Ozdemir N, Yazici O. Review of Immunotherapy Efficacy in Virus-associated Cancers. EJMO. 2022; 6(2): 100-110
Corresponding Author: Zeynep İrem Ozay