Internal medicine

Immunotherapy

Cancer immunotherapy

Cancer treatment

Adoptive cell transfer

Cancer

Immunology

T cell

Adoptive immunotherapy

Cancer research

Medicine

Immune system

Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy

Immunotherapy is regarded as the most promising treatment for cancers. Various cancer immunotherapies, including adoptive cellular immunotherapy, tumor vaccines, antibodies, immune checkpoint inhibitors, and small-molecule inhibitors, have achieved certain successes. In this review, we summarize the role of macrophages in current immunotherapies and the advantages of targeting macrophages. To better understand and make better use of this type of cell, their development and differentiation characteristics, categories, typical markers, and functions were collated at the beginning of the review. Therapeutic strategies based on or combined with macrophages have the potential to improve the treatment efficacy of cancer therapies.

Targeting macrophages in cancer immunotherapy