ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the ongoing clinical trials and will highlight some success stories that are paving the way for a more widespread use of immunotherapies in the multimodality management of intracranial malignancies. Multimodality therapies that combine regional immunotherapy with other local and systemic therapies are demonstrating continuous growth as the field of immunotherapy keeps on expanding. There could be two ways of using immunotherapy for brain tumors: The first is the “active immunotherapy” designed to boost the patient’s native immune response, and the second is “adoptive immunotherapy,” where in vitro activated immune cells or specific molecules directly targeting tumor cells are injected. A greater understanding of the mechanisms exploited by tumor cells to suppress the immune system and evade destruction has provided a wealth of potential treatment strategies, enabling the development of active immunotherapies that target specific components of the immune system.
