Enhancing photothermal therapy by a locally administered novel immunostimulant to induce antitumor immunity

Photothermal therapy (PTT) is an effective approach for local tumor destruction; however, PTT has limited systemic effects. Given the immunological root cause of cancer, the ideal solution is immunotherapy to activate, enhance, and direct the host immune system to systemically eradicate cancer and prevent recurrence. However, current immunotherapies have limitations. Even advanced immunotherapies, such as immune checkpoint blockade, have a low patient response rate, around 10 to 30%. To overcome these limitations, particularly the challenges posed by metastatic tumors, we developed localized ablative immunotherapy by enhancing PTT with a locally administered novel immunostimulant to induce antitumor immunity. I will discuss the immune responses induced by the immunologically enhanced PTT at the transcriptomic level using single-cell RNA sequencing in treating a breast cancer mouse model. Then, I will discuss the effects of immunologically enhanced PTT in the treatment of various tumors in animal models and clinical trials.