How immunotherapies are targeting the glioblastoma immune environment

The diagnosis of glioblastoma remains one of the most dismal in medical practice, with current standard care only providing a median survival of 14.6 months. The need for new therapies is desperately clear. Components of the tumour microenvironment are demonstrating growing importance in the field, given they allow the tumour to utilise pathways involved in autoimmune prevention, something that enables the tumour's establishment and growth. As with many different cancers, the search for a new standard has progressed to the design of immunotherapies, which aim to counteract the immune changes within this microenvironment. Serotherapy, adoptive lymphocyte transfer, peptide and dendritic cell vaccines and a range of other methods are currently under investigation, while intracranial infection has also been researched for its capacity to reverse glioblastoma mediated immunosuppression. Some of these new therapies have shown promise, but it is a long road ahead before their incorporation into glioblastoma standard therapy.