Immune-Checkpoint Inhibitors from Cancer to COVID-19
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ONCOLOGY 58: 145-157, 2021 Immune-checkpoint inhibitors from cancer to COVID-19: A promising avenue for the treatment of patients with COVID-19 (Review) SILVIA VIVARELLI1, LUCA FALZONE2, FRANCESCO TORINO3, GIUSEPPA SCANDURRA4, GIULIA RUSSO5, ROBERTO BORDONARO6, FRANCESCO PAPPALARDO5,7, DEMETRIOS A. SPANDIDOS8, GIUSEPPINA RACITI5* and MASSIMO LIBRA1,7* 1Section of General Pathology, Clinics and Oncology, Department of Biomedical and Biotechnological Sciences, University of Catania, I-95123 Catania; 2Epidemiology Unit, IRCCS Istituto Nazionale Tumori ‘Fondazione G. Pascale’, I-80131 Naples; 3Department of Systems Medicine, Medical Oncology, University of Rome Tor Vergata, I-00133 Rome; 4Medical Oncology Unit, Azienda Ospedaliera Cannizzaro, I-95126 Catania; 5Department of Drug Sciences, University of Catania, I-95123 Catania; 6Medical Oncology Unit, Garibaldi Hospital, I-95122 Catania; 7Research Center for Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Tumors, University of Catania, I-95123 Catania, Italy; 8Laboratory of Clinical Virology, Medical School, University of Crete, 71003 Heraklion, Greece Received November 5, 2020; Accepted December 14, 2020 DOI: 10.3892/ijo.2020.5159 Abstract. The severe acute respiratory syndrome associ- suffer from T-cell exhaustion, which may lead to viral sepsis ated coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) poses a threat to human and an increased mortality rate. It has been observed that cancer life worldwide. Since early March, 2020, coronavirus patients, who usually are immunocompromised, may restore disease 2019 (COVID-19), characterized by an acute and often their anti-tumoral immune response when treated with ICIs. severe form of pneumonia, has been declared a pandemic. Moreover, viral-infected mice and humans, exhibit a T-cell This has led to a boom in biomedical research studies at all exhaustion, which is also observed following SARS-CoV-2 stages of the pipeline, from the in vitro to the clinical phase.
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