Recent successes in immunotherapeutic strategies are being investigated to combat cancers that have less than ideal responses to standard of care treatment, such as non-small-cell lung cancer. In this paper, we summarize concepts and the current status of immunotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer, including salient features of the major categories of immunotherapy-monoclonal antibody therapy, immune checkpoint blockade, immunotoxins, anticancer vaccines, and adoptive cell therapy.

BackgroundTo develop cancer antigen-targeted immunotherapeutic strategies for malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM), we investigated the individual and coexpressions of the cancer-associated antigens mesothelin (MSLN), cancer antigen 125 (CA125), and Wilms tumor 1 (WT1) in both epithelioid and non-epithelioid MPM.MethodsAll available hematoxylin and eosin-stained slides from patients who were diagnosed with MPM (1989-2010) were reviewed. We constructed tissue microarrays from 283 patients (epithelioid = 234; non-epithelioid = 49). Intensity and distribution for each antigen were assessed by immunohistochemistry.ResultsPositive expression of MSLN, CA125, and WT1 were demonstrated in 93%, 75%, and 97% of epithelioid MPM cases, and 57%, 33%, and 98% of non-epithelioid MPM cases, respectively. Triple- and double-positive antigen coexpressions were demonstrated in 72% and 23% of epithelioid MPM cases and 29% and 33% of non-epithelioid MPM cases, respectively. Complete absence of expression for all three antigens was demonstrated in <2% of MPM cases. More than two-thirds of MPM cases had ≥50% distribution of MSLN-positive cells and, among the remaining third, half had ≥50% distribution of WT1-positive cells. CA125/MSLN coexpression was observed in more than two-thirds of epithelioid MPM cases and one-third of non-epithelioid MPM cases.ConclusionA limited number of cancer-associated antigens can target almost all MPM tumors for immunotherapy.

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Background The purpose of this study was to systematically review clinically translatable immunotherapeutic agents that are delivered regionally for solid malignancies. Data Sources PubMed and ClinicalTrials.gov were searched for published and registered clinical trials, respectively. The search yielded 334 relevant publications, of which 116 manuscripts were included for review after exclusion criteria were applied. Conclusions There has been an increase in the regional administration of cell-based and viral vector-based clinical trials over the last 5 years. Surgical interventions have been developed for intrapleural, intracranial, intraperitoneal, and intratumoral routs of access to enhance the local delivery of there therapies. Multimodality therapies that combine regional immunotherapy with other local and systemic therapies are demonstrating continued growth as the field of immunotherapy continues to expand.

annotated by The Cancer Genome Atlas lung ACA dataset and all hypermorphic mutations identified were located in the highly conserved kinase domain. The majority of mutations have been known to enhance kinase activity in melanoma in a fashion analogous to the well-known BRAF V600E mutation. In line with these findings, we showed that kinase domain mutations were hypermorphic as measured by MEK and ERK1/2 phosphorylation. We also showed that exposure of wild type BRAF cells to radiation results only in a transient activation of MEK and ERK1/2. The MEK inhibitor selumetinib selectively decreased the growth of cells with kinase domain BRAF mutations and sensitized these cells to radiation. Conclusion: BRAF mutations are associated with radiation resistance in lung ACA. Our data nominates MEK inhibitors, a drug class currently in clinical use, as a targeted therapeutic in select BRAF-mutant lung ACA. Further investigation has the potential to yield an additional genotype-directed therapy that could impact up to 4-6% of patients with lung ACA, a frequency comparable to that of ALK rearrangements (4%) or EGFR mutations (10%).