Combination of Near Infrared Photoimmunotherapy Targeting Cancer Cells and Host-Immune Activation
Common methods of cancer therapy largely rely on either direct killing of cancer cells or activation of the host immune response to do so, but not both. A recently developed treatment of tumors uses an antibody/photo-absorber, Ab-IR700, with near infrared photoimmunotherapy (NIR-PIT), to selectively kill IR700-bound and NIR-light-exposed cancer cells by activating an immunogenic cell death pathway. NIR-PIT has been shown in human clinical trials to effectively target tumor cells via a host immune response with relatively few side effects.