Harnessing the power of traditional Chinese medicine monomers and compound prescriptions to boost cancer immunotherapy

Keyan Miao; Weici Liu; Jingtong Xu; Zhengtao Qian; Qinglin Zhang

doi:10.3389/fimmu.2023.1277243

Harnessing the power of traditional Chinese medicine monomers and compound prescriptions to boost cancer immunotherapy

Front Immunol. 2023 Nov 15:14:1277243. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1277243. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Keyan Miao^#¹, Weici Liu^#², Jingtong Xu³, Zhengtao Qian⁴, Qinglin Zhang⁵

Affiliations

¹ Medical College, Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu, China.
² Department of Thoracic Surgery, The Affiliated Wuxi People's Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Wuxi People's Hospital, Wuxi Medical Center, Nanjing Medical University, Wuxi, Jiangsu, China.
³ The First School of Clinical Medicine, Nanjing Medical University. Nanjing, Jiangsu, China.
⁴ Department of Clinical Laboratory, Changshu Medicine Examination Institute, Changshu, Jiangsu, China.
⁵ Department of Gastroenterology, The Affiliated Wuxi People's Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Wuxi People's Hospital, Wuxi Medical Center, Nanjing Medical University, Wuxi, Jiangsu, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

At present, cancer is the largest culprit that endangers human health. The current treatment options for cancer mainly include surgical resection, adjuvant radiotherapy and chemotherapy, but their therapeutic effects and long-term prognosis are unsatisfactory. Immunotherapy is an emerging therapy that has completely transformed the therapeutic landscape of advanced cancers, and has tried to occupy a place in the neoadjuvant therapy of resectable tumors. However, not all patients respond to immunotherapy due to the immunological and molecular features of the tumors. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) provides a new perspective for cancer treatment and is considered to have the potential as promising anti-tumor drugs considering its immunoregulatory properties. This review concludes commonly used TCM monomers and compounds from the perspective of immune regulatory pathways, aiming to clearly introduce the basic mechanisms of TCM in boosting cancer immunotherapy and mechanisms of several common TCM. In addition, we also summarized closed and ongoing trials and presented prospects for future development. Due to the significant role of immunotherapy in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), TCM combined with immunotherapy should be emphasized in NSCLC.

Keywords: cancer immunotherapy; cytokines; immunomodulators; natural products; traditional Chinese medicine; tumor immunity.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung* / drug therapy
Humans
Immunotherapy
Lung Neoplasms* / pathology
Medicine, Chinese Traditional
Prescriptions

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work is supported by the Project of Wuxi Health Commission (Q202109) and General Project of Wuxi Medical Center of Nanjing Medical University (WMCG202326).