Modern Approaches to Cancer Therapy: Immunotherapy and Targeted Drug Delivery.

Abstract

This article reviews recent achievements in molecular immunology that have given a new insight into the mechanisms of tumor escape from the control of immunocompetent cells and opened the way to the development of radically new immunotherapeutic procedures and further improvement of existing chemotherapeutic techniques. The application of new updated techniques in molecular biology, biochemistry and cellular biotechnology has made it possible to detect molecular changes in tumor cells which help to escape them from immunological control and develop on their basis some novel approaches to immunotherapy of malignant tumors. One of the main challenges to immunotherapy, which is related to recognition of tumor antigens by immunocompetent cells, has been solved through generation of antitumor vaccines based on dendritic cells. The complexity of this procedure is in that these vaccines are strictly individual and must be prepared strictly individually for each concrete patient. However, high sensitivity of the novel procedure which makes it applicable even for patients with grades III and IV of cancer encourages hope that it will afford effective treatment and reduce metastatic growth, especially when used in combination with other concomitant immunochemotherapeutic techniques.