Vaccines and Oncolytic Virus for the Treatment of Lung Cancer

Lung cancer is the most prevalent cause of cancer deaths in men and women, with a 5-year survival rate of fewer than 15% due to late-stage diagnosis and ineffective treatments. Surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy are first-line treatments for lung cancer. Most patients acquire chemotherapy resistance and relapse after initially responding well to treatment. Recently, immunotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) has become the gold standard for the treatment of many forms of cancer, including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Despite this progress, lung cancer patients still have a dismal prognosis. While immunotherapy has shown great promise, it is not a panacea; some patients do not respond well or at all to treatment. Therefore, in order to improve patient survival, the treatment of lung cancer needs to adopt a new approach, one that employs a different therapeutic mechanism. Lung cancer treatment holds great promise for the future thanks to the development of therapeutic cancer vaccines and oncolytic viral therapy. By using immune system to stimulate long-term memory toward tumor cells, therapeutic cancer vaccines hope to cause tumor regression with few or no adverse consequences. Cancer vaccines are distinct because they take an overlapping but distinct approach to boosting antitumor immunity, one that may work in conjunction with ICIs. Additionally, oncolytic viruses can be used in cancer vaccines as a form of effective cancer immunotherapy. Oncolytic viruses are designed to promote immunogenic cell death by preferentially infecting and replicating in tumors. Because of this, more immune mediators are able to reach the tumor microenvironment, which ultimately leads to a disruption in intratumoral immunosuppression and the induction of systemic immunity against the tumor in the host. This chapter provides an overview of latest progress in the development of cancer vaccines and oncolytic viruses for lung cancer, including their mechanisms of action, the most common forms of oncolytic viruses that can be used in tandem with traditional treatments, current clinical developments, and prospective strategies.