Glioma special issue introduction

Abstract

In the past decade, cancer immunotherapy has emerged from experimental protocols in select pathologies to a mainstay of frontline cancer therapy that has drastically improved outcomes for thousands of patients. Since the approval of the first anticancer vaccine (sipuleucel-T) in 2010, strategies for stimulating the immune system to fight cancer have evolved from monotherapy vaccination approaches adapted from infectious diseases to immune checkpoint inhibition, adoptive cell therapy, viral therapy, and many others. These clinical advances reflect pivotal discoveries in how the immune system interacts with the tumor microenvironment, leading to the identification of targetable pathways and rationally designed algorithms that account for pathology, patient, and iatrogenic factors. Despite the challenges of treating gliomas with immunotherapy, intensive efforts aimed at elucidating the underpinnings of glioma immunology and next-generation immunotherapeutic strategies have placed successful translation of the first glioma immunotherapies seemingly within reach.