Volume 14 Issue 6, June 2017

The success of cancer therapies is hampered by a paucity of suitable drug targets and the rapid development of therapy resistance. The concept of synthetic lethality provides a potential solution to these constraints via the identification of novel therapeutic vulnerabilities, as exemplified in two recent studies.

Adoptive cellular therapy (ACT) is now considered a bona fide treatment modality within the evolving field of anticancer immunotherapy. Great advances have enabled the adoptive transfer of tumour-selective lymphocytes for the treatment of a variety of malignancies. Unfortunately, this selectivity has led to the emergence of antigen-loss variants. New strategies need to be employed to minimize the incidence of this phenomenon, enabling the full potential of ACT to be realized.

The treatment landscape for lymphoma has become crowded, requiring efficient prioritization for expedited drug development. New challenges include the optimal duration of therapy, as well as the need to balance cost, benefit, and late-onset toxicity. Herein, the authors overview of the most-promising agents in clinical development for the treatment of lymphoma, and provide expert opinion on new strategies to streamline drug development as well as approaches for patient selection and for incorporating new end points into clinical trials.

Intraoperative fluorescence enables highly specific real-time detection of tumours at the time of surgery. In particular, near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence is a promising tool currently being tested in clinical settings. Zhang et al. discuss the latest developments in NIR fluorophores, cancer-targeting strategies, and detection instrumentation for intraoperative cancer detection, as well as the challenges associated with their effective application in clinical settings.

The interaction between radiotherapy and the host immune system has uncovered new mechanisms that can be exploited to improve the efficacy of radiotherapy. In this article, the authors highlight data providing new explanations for the success or failure of radiotherapy, and postulate, using radiation-induced tumour equilibrium (RITE) as an example, how the combination of immune-modulation and radiation could tip the balance of the host immune response to promote cure.

The costs of both newly approved, and established anticancer drugs have risen dramatically in the past decade, to the point where the costs of such treatments are becoming unsustainable. In this perspective, the authors outline the extent of this problem, and how it is likely to continue, while also suggesting measures that could be taken in future to address these rising costs.