Anthelmintic Drugs as Emerging Immune Modulators in Cancer

Despite recent advances in treatment approaches, cancer is still one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Restoration of tumor immune surveillance represents a valid strategy to overcome the acquired resistance and cytotoxicity of conventional therapies in oncology and immunotherapeutic drugs, such as immune checkpoint inhibitors and immunogenic cell death inducers, and has substantially progressed the treatment of several malignancies and improved the clinical management of advanced disease. Unfortunately, because of tumor-intrinsic and/or -extrinsic mechanisms for escaping immune surveillance, only a fraction of patients clinically respond to and benefit from cancer immunotherapy. Accumulating evidence derived from studies of drug repositioning, that is, the strategy to identify new uses for approved or investigational drugs that are outside the scope of the original medical indication, has suggested that some anthelmintic drugs, in addition to their antineoplastic effects, exert important immunomodulatory actions on specific subsets of immune cell and related pathways. In this review, we report and discuss current knowledge on the impact of anthelmintic drugs on host immunity and their potential implication in cancer immunotherapy.

Automated summary

Despite recent advances in treatment approaches, cancer remains a major cause of death worldwide. The restoration of tumor immune surveillance has shown promising results in overcoming resistance to conventional therapies and improving the clinical management of advanced disease. However, only a fraction of patients benefits from cancer immunotherapy, due to mechanisms that allow tumors to escape immune surveillance. Research on drug repositioning has suggested that anthelmintic drugs, in addition to their antineoplastic effects, have significant immunomodulatory actions on specific subsets of immune cells and pathways. This review examines the impact of anthelmintic drugs on host immunity and their potential implications in cancer immunotherapy.