Percutaneous tumor ablation is now a widely accepted minimally invasive local treatment option offered by interventional radiology and applied to various organs and tumor histology types. It utilizes extreme temperatures to achieve irreversible cellular injury, where ablated tumor interacts with surrounding tissue and host via tissue remodeling and inflammation, clinically manifesting as post-ablation syndrome. During this process, in-situ tumor vaccination occurs, in which tumor neoantigens are released from ablated tissue and can prime one’s immune system which would favorably affect both local and remote site disease control. Although successful in priming the immune system, this rarely turns into clinical benefits for local and systemic tumor control due to intrinsic negative immune modulation of the tumor microenvironment. A combination of ablation and immunotherapy has been employed to overcome these and has shown promising preliminary results of synergistic effect without significantly increased risk profiles. The aim of this article is to review the evidence on post-ablation immune response and its synergy with systemic immunotherapies.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.