Cancer Treatment: Immunotherapy of Different Types of Tumors

What is Cancer Treatment: Immunotherapy of Different Types of Tumors?

Cancer Treatment: Immunotherapy of Different Types of Tumors (Volume 7 of the Handbook of Cancer and Immunology), edited by Nima Rezaei and published by Springer Nature in 2025, is a comprehensive organ-specific immunotherapy reference covering 29 cancer types. It is designed for oncologists, residents, researchers, medical students, and clinical pharmacists seeking up-to-date, evidence-based guidance on cancer immunotherapy.

Introduction

Cancer immunotherapy has fundamentally changed the way we think about treating malignancies. Where surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy once dominated the clinical landscape, checkpoint inhibitors, CAR-T cell therapies, cancer vaccines, and monoclonal antibodies have opened entirely new avenues for durable responses — even in cancers once considered beyond rescue.

But keeping pace with this rapidly evolving field is no small task. New agents emerge regularly, clinical trial data shift treatment algorithms, and the biology of tumor-immune interactions grows more complex with every passing year.

That is precisely why Cancer Treatment: Immunotherapy of Different Types of Tumors — Volume 7 of the ambitious Handbook of Cancer and Immunology series edited by Professor Nima Rezaei — stands out as such a valuable resource.

Unlike broad textbooks that treat immunotherapy as a single chapter, this volume devotes its entire focus to the specific immunotherapeutic landscape of each major cancer type, from gastrointestinal malignancies to pediatric brain tumors.

For anyone working in oncology or studying for specialty board examinations, this is the kind of organ-by-organ, disease-by-disease breakdown that turns complexity into clarity.

What This Book Covers

Volume 7 is the clinical crown of the Handbook of Cancer and Immunology series. Its 29 chapters cover immunotherapy as it applies to virtually every major organ system, grounded in both mechanistic understanding and clinically actionable evidence.

Gastrointestinal Cancers

The book opens with a broad introductory chapter by Zonouzi, Razi, and Rezaei that outlines the historical arc of cancer immunotherapy — from 19th-century observations in sarcoma management to the modern era of immune checkpoint blockade — and then situates each GI cancer in that context. Subsequent chapters tackle the following:

• Gastrointestinal malignancies in general (Chapter 2), covering colorectal, gastric, and hepatic cancers from an immunotherapy perspective.
• Esophageal cancer (Chapter 3), with a detailed look at checkpoint inhibitors in locally advanced and metastatic disease.
• Colorectal cancer (CRC) (Chapter 4), including the critical role of microsatellite instability (MSI) status in determining immunotherapy responsiveness and the use of anti-PD-1 agents in mismatch repair-deficient tumors.
• Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) (Chapter 5), exploring PD-1/PD-L1 blockade and the combination strategies with anti-VEGF agents.
• Biliary tract cancers (Chapter 6), examining immune checkpoint inhibitors in a cancer type where treatment options have historically been very limited.
• Pancreatic cancer (Chapter 7) addresses what remains one of the most immunologically cold tumors and ongoing strategies to overcome its immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME).

Breast and Hematologic Cancers

Chapter 8 provides a thorough review of immunotherapy for breast cancer, covering immune checkpoint blockade in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), as well as the roles of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs). Chapters 9 through 12 shift to hematologic malignancies, covering:

• Hematological cancers broadly (Chapter 9)
• Acute leukemia (Chapter 10) — including CAR-T cell therapy for B-cell ALL and checkpoint strategies in AML
• Multiple myeloma (Chapter 11) — daratumumab, elotuzumab, and beyond
• Lymphoma (Chapter 12) — from Hodgkin lymphoma’s exceptional response to PD-1 inhibitors to the evolving landscape in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma

Gynecologic and Urologic Cancers

Chapters 13 and 14 cover gynecologic oncology, with specific discussions on immunotherapy for ovarian, uterine, and cervical cancers, including the role of pembrolizumab in PD-L1-positive cervical cancer.

Urologic oncology is addressed across three chapters: prostate cancer (Chapter 15, noting the limited success of traditional checkpoint inhibitors but emerging strategies including cancer vaccines like sipuleucel-T and novel CAR-T approaches), renal cell carcinoma (Chapter 16, where combination immunotherapy with anti-VEGF agents has become standard of care), and urothelial carcinoma (Chapter 17, covering FDA-approved checkpoint inhibitors for advanced bladder cancer).

Sarcomas, Skin Cancers, and Rare Tumors

Chapter 18 addresses soft tissue sarcomas, and Chapter 19 focuses specifically on osteosarcoma — a disease in which immunotherapy is still in early development, but NK cell-based approaches and immune checkpoint studies are ongoing. Skin cancers receive two dedicated chapters: cutaneous melanoma (Chapter 20) — arguably the cancer most transformed by immunotherapy — and Merkel cell carcinoma (Chapter 21), a rare but highly aggressive neuroendocrine skin cancer where PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors have shown remarkable activity.

Head, Neck, CNS, and Thoracic Cancers

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) (Chapter 22) and nasopharyngeal cancer (Chapter 23) receive detailed organ-specific reviews. The CNS section (Chapter 24) tackles glioblastoma, neuroblastoma, medulloblastoma, and Wilms tumor — covering pediatric CNS tumors separately and honestly acknowledging the limitations of current immunotherapy approaches in immunologically privileged sites.

Ocular tumors (Chapter 25) and endocrine oncology, including pituitary tumors and testicular germ cell tumors (Chapter 26), are covered in chapters that rarely address this comprehensively in a single reference.

Lung cancer receives two dedicated chapters: small cell lung cancer (Chapter 27) and non-small cell lung cancer (Chapter 28), with detailed coverage of approved agents, ongoing trials, and PD-L1 expression as a biomarker. The book closes (Chapter 29) with a dedicated pediatric oncology chapter covering neuroblastoma, medulloblastoma, Wilms tumor, and glioblastoma from an immunotherapy perspective — a section that is genuinely difficult to find covered this thoroughly elsewhere.

Key Features

• 29 organ-specific chapters covering virtually every major cancer type in a dedicated, focused manner
• Multi-institutional, international authorship with contributors from the USA, Germany, Turkey, Japan, Serbia, China, Sweden, Poland, Brazil, Malaysia, Cyprus, and more
• Coverage of all major immunotherapy modalities: monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), immune checkpoint inhibitors (anti-PD-1, anti-PD-L1, anti-CTLA-4), CAR-T cell therapy, cancer vaccines, cytokine therapies, natural killer (NK) cell therapy, and oncolytic virotherapy
• 54 data-rich tables summarizing clinical trial results, approved agents, and biomarker data across cancer types
• Tumor microenvironment (TME) focus: each chapter contextualizes immunotherapy within the immunological landscape of the specific cancer
• FDA-approved agent coverage: agents approved up to 2025 are discussed with indication, mechanism, and evidence base
• Pediatric oncology inclusion: a distinct chapter specifically addressing immunotherapy in childhood cancers
• Part of a 10-volume comprehensive series — Volume 7 can function as a standalone organ-specific reference or be used alongside other volumes for a complete understanding

Who Should Read This Book

Medical Students and Interns

The introductory chapter and the organ-specific summaries provide an accessible, well-structured entry into cancer immunotherapy — especially useful for those rotating through oncology or preparing for written examinations.

Residents in Oncology, Hematology, and Internal Medicine

This is perhaps the most natural audience. Residents will find chapter-by-chapter disease-specific coverage invaluable for clinical decision-making, case preparation, and understanding the rationale behind treatment protocols they encounter on the ward.

Oncologists and Hematologists

For practicing clinicians, the book functions as a reference that synthesizes current evidence across the full spectrum of cancer immunotherapy, with particular value in less common tumor types where one may not routinely encounter updated literature.

Researchers in Cancer Immunology

The mechanistic discussions of tumor-immune interactions, immunosuppressive TME, and emerging immunotherapy targets make this volume useful for basic and translational researchers seeking a clinical context.

Clinical Pharmacists

The detailed coverage of monoclonal antibodies, checkpoint inhibitors, CAR-T products, and adverse effect profiles (including immune-related adverse events, or irAEs) provides clinically relevant drug information across oncology subspecialties.

Exam Candidates

Medical professionals preparing for oncology or hematology board examinations will find the structured, evidence-based summaries and clinical trial data highly useful for organized review.

Why This Book Is Useful

The field of cancer immunotherapy moves at a pace that standard textbooks struggle to match. What sets Volume 7 apart is its currency — published in 2025, it reflects approvals, trial outcomes, and mechanistic insights that are simply unavailable in earlier references.

The chapter on urothelial carcinoma, for example, maps out the checkpoint inhibitor landscape after the pivotal trials that established maintenance avelumab and first-line pembrolizumab; the lung cancer chapters detail the evolution from single-agent nivolumab to combination chemoimmunotherapy regimens.

Critically, the book does not shy away from acknowledging where immunotherapy falls short. The pancreatic cancer chapter confronts the deeply immunosuppressive nature of the pancreatic TME and the modest results seen with checkpoint blockade to date.

The pediatric chapters note where PD-L1 expression is absent or restricted (as in medulloblastoma), limiting the utility of checkpoint inhibitors. This intellectual honesty — presenting the limitations alongside the triumphs — is what gives the book genuine scientific credibility.

For board examination preparation, the structured keyword sections, well-organized tables, and clear summaries of approved versus investigational therapies make this a practical and efficient study companion alongside standard oncology review texts.

Strengths of the Book

Unmatched breadth. With 29 dedicated chapters spanning organ systems from the eye to the biliary tract, this volume achieves a comprehensiveness that is genuinely rare in immunotherapy publishing.

International, multidisciplinary authorship. Contributors come from oncology, surgery, hematology, pediatrics, pharmacology, and basic science — from institutions across four continents. This breadth of expertise shows in the quality and clinical nuance of individual chapters.

Appropriate mechanistic depth. The book does not simply catalogue approved drugs. It grounds each discussion in the tumor biology — why a given cancer responds (or does not respond) to immunotherapy — which helps readers build transferable conceptual understanding rather than memorizing isolated facts.

Inclusion of TME analysis. The tumor microenvironment is increasingly recognized as the key determinant of immunotherapy response. The volume integrates TME discussions throughout, which is both scientifically current and practically useful.

17 figures and 54 tables. Visual learners and those seeking quick data synthesis will appreciate the structured tabular summaries, which compress clinical trial data efficiently.

Part of a complete 10-volume series. Readers who need deeper context on tumor immunobiology (Volumes 1–3), diagnostics (Volume 4), checkpoint biology (Volume 5), or general immunotherapy principles (Volume 6) can follow the thread through the broader series.

Limitations

Depth varies by chapter. As is inherent in multi-author works, chapter length and depth are not perfectly uniform. Less common cancers (ocular tumors and Merkel cell carcinoma) receive shorter treatments than major cancers like lung, breast, and colorectal cancer, which is understandable given the evidence base, though readers seeking exhaustive coverage of rare tumors may need supplementary sources.

Limited primary imaging. With only 17 figures across 789 pages, the book is primarily text- and table-driven. Readers who prefer heavily illustrated references — for example, histopathology images or visual flowcharts of TME biology — may find it less visually engaging than some competing titles.

Rapid field evolution. This is a limitation inherent to any immunotherapy text. Given the pace of FDA approvals and pivotal trial publications in oncology, some specific data points may evolve beyond what was current at the time of the 2025 publication.

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