Choosing the best chemotherapy agent to boost immune checkpoint inhibition activity

Despite the fact that reactivation of specific antitumor immunity through inhibition of immune checkpoints represents a formidable therapeutic weapon against cancer, many patients are poorly reactive to this treatment. To overcome this limitation, efforts are being made to characterize the immunostimulatory properties of chemotherapeutic agents and how they can be best combined with immune checkpoint inhibitors. The work by Wanderley and colleagues indicates that the TLR4 agonist taxol can restore the anticancer activity of tumor-associated macrophages and improve the clinical efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors.