Immunotherapy of cancers comes of age

INTRODUCTION: Cancer immunotherapy has evolved and is aimed at generating the efficacious therapeutic modality to enhance the specificity and power of the immune system to combat tumors. Areas covered: Current efforts in cancer immunotherapy fall into three main approaches. One approach is through the blockade of immune checkpoints, another approach is through adoptive cellular therapy, and the last approach is through vaccination. The goal of this review is to summarize the current understanding and status of cancer immunotherapy in these three categories. Expert commentary: We foresee the development of therapeutic protocols combining these approaches with each other or conventional therapies to achieve the most appropriate guideline for management of cancer.