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Liao et al. J Cancer Metastasis Treat 2018;4:3                      Journal of Cancer
               DOI: 10.20517/2394-4722.2017.63                           Metastasis and Treatment




               Commentary                                                                    Open Access


               Immunotherapy of cancer is a part of biotherapy


               Shuen-Kuei Liao , Robert K. Oldham 3
                           1,2
               1 The PhD Program for Cancer Biology and Drug Discovery, Taipei Medical University, Taipei City 11031, Taiwan, China.
               2 Vectorite Biomedical Inc., New Taipei City 22175, Taiwan, China.
               3 Hope Regional Cancer Center, Panama, FL 32444, USA.

               Correspondence to: Prof. Shuen-Kuei Liao, The PhD Program for Cancer Biology and Drug Discovery, Taipei Medical University, Taipei
               City 11031, Taiwan, China. E-mail: liaosk@h.tmu.edu.tw

               How to cite this article: Liao SK, Oldham RK. Immunotherapy of cancer is a part of biotherapy. J Cancer Metastasis Treat 2018;4:3.
               http://dx.doi.org/10.20517/2394-4722.2017.63
               Received: 2 Oct 2017    First Decision: 2 Jan 2018    Revised: 8 Jan 2018    Accepted: 12 Jan 2018    Published: 22 Jan 2018

               Science Editor: Lucio Miele    Copy Editor: Jun-Yao Li    Production Editor: Huan-Liang Wu



               INTRODUCTION
               The terms immunotherapy of cancer and biotherapy of cancer have been used interchangeably in the
               past. Strictly speaking, biotherapy or biological therapy is more appropriate and is now considered the
               4th modality of cancer therapy. It can be effective when used alone or in combination with surgery,
               radiation or chemotherapy. To put biotherapy into a better perspective, it is important to clarify a historical
               misconception associated with immunotherapy. The term biological response modifiers (BRMs), which had
               been widely used in the 1970s, referred to agents or approaches, whose modes of action involve the host’s
               own biological responses. Biological substances and BRMs work through many different mechanisms in
               the biotherapy of cancer. These mechanisms involved for each substance/modifier may be one or several
               of the following: (1) to increase the host’s antitumor response through augmentation or restoration of
               effector mechanisms or decrease a component of the host response that is deleterious (such as with immune
                                                   [1]
               checkpoint inhibitors, e.g. anti-CTLA-4) ; (2) to augment host defenses through the administration of
               certain immune cells, natural biological substances, or synthetic derivatives thereof as effectors (direct or
               indirect) of antitumor responses; (3) to enhance the host responses using modified tumor cells or other types
               of vaccines to stimulate greater immune responses or increase the sensitivity of tumor cells in vivo; (4) to
               increase the maturation, differentiation or dormancy of tumor cells; (5) to interfere with growth-promoting
               factors or signaling pathways of tumor cells concerning proliferation, migration/invasion, apoptosis, and
               angiogenesis; (6) to use biological molecules to target and bind to cancer cells or immune cells to induce
               greater effective cytostatic/cytotoxic antitumor activity; and (7) to use biological molecules to modify the
               tumor microenvironment or the host immune system such as allowing effector T cells or natural killer
               (NK) cells to effectively target and eradicate tumor cells. Thus, one can envisage biotherapy with immune


                           © The Author(s) 2018. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
                           International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use,
                sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, for any purpose, even commercially, as long
                as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license,
                and indicate if changes were made.


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