Immunological Responses Triggered by Photothermal Therapy with Carbon Nanotubes in Combination with Anti-CTLA-4 Therapy to Inhibit Cancer Metastasis

摘要

Despite tremendous effects devoted into cancer research, cancer remains one of the major causes of death. The main reason for such a high mortality from cancer is due to the highly invasive behavior of cancer cells that cause metas-tases. Despite improvements in diagnosis and surgical techniques, most deaths from cancer are due to metastasis that is resistant to conventional therapies. Therefore, the next generation of cancer therapy should not only be able to remove or destroy the primary tumor, but also to recognize, track down, and destroy any remaining tumor cells at site of distant metas-tases. Particularly, immunotherapy, in which the patient's own immune system is trained to recognize and destroy tumor cells, has shown great promise in treating patients with metastatic tumors.