Releasing the Brakes on Cancer Immunotherapy — NEJM

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.... In the history of cancer treatment, there will be a full chapter dedicated to unleashing the immune system by releasing its negative regulatory checkpoints. That chapter will start with the seminal studies by Allison involving blocking CTLA-4 in mouse models. As the successful clinical development of ipilimumab and PD-1 and PD-L1 blocking antibodies has shown, Allison's early insight was correct: “What we needed to do was to release the brakes of the immune system to fight cancer.” The obvious risk as we push the limits of this approach to cancer treatment is the appearance of autoimmune side effects, which can be serious. But by learning how to safely utilize combinations of immune activators and checkpoint inhibitors, we should be able to expand the potential of immunotherapy for cancer.