Cancer remains the second leading cause of death, after
cardiovascular diseases, in industrialized countries. The first goal to achieve is to prevent
cancer occurrence or to diagnose it at an early and curable stage. Some screening strategies have been developed, with controversies across countries, for several
cancer type; colorectal, breasts or
prostate cancer for example.Treatment of
cancer is generally based on surgery and
radiotherapy for localized and attainable
tumors, associated, in some cases, with
adjuvant chemotherapy.
Chemotherapy can also be used as first line treatment for disseminated diseases.The formulation of therapeutic strategies to enhance immune-mediated
tumor destruction is a central goal of
cancer immunology. Substantive progress toward delineating the mechanisms involved in innate and adaptive
tumor immunity has improved the prospects for crafting efficacious treatments LPS and their active component
lipid A, have been used in
tumor therapy since the 19th century.Studies in animal models have shown promising results on different models of
cancer but data from human trial are scarce. The published Phase-1
cancer studies have shown that
lipid A analogues are usually well tolerated, most of the side effects being likely related to immune response, i. e.,
fever,
chills and rigor. The administration of several
lipids A analogues was shown to result in a significant increase in circulating levels of several
cytokines but no objective antitumor responses were observed. Therefore clinical activity of such molecules deserves further experiments, likely in conjunction with
chemotherapy.