Malignant tumors are currently one of the leading causes of death worldwide, and have become a major category of diseases that seriously jeopardize human life and health and constrain socioeconomic development. According to the Global Cancer Report 2014, there was a disturbing increase in the number of cancer patients and deaths globally in 2012, with nearly half of the new cancer cases occurring in Asia, most of which were in China, which ranked first in terms of new cancer cases. Among four types of malignant tumors, including liver, esophagus, stomach and lung, China leads the world in new cases and deaths. With the current level of tumor treatment, most malignant tumors cannot be cured. The World Health Organization has proposed that the current goal of tumor treatment is to substantially prolong the lives of patients and to ensure that the quality of life of those who survive with tumors is at the best possible level. There are many current treatments for tumors, and traditional tumor treatments include surgical treatment, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Although surgical treatment can remove the tumor, it may not be able to completely remove the tumor or cause tumor metastasis in the process of surgery, and it may also cause organ damage and lowering of body immunity; chemotherapy is a kind of systemic treatment, which has obvious and rapid effect, but it may also kill normal cells together with tumor cells, so chemotherapy is considered as a kind of treatment method of “burning the stone with the stone”; radiotherapy can achieve the effect of surgical removal of some tumors, and can also ensure the quality of life of those who live with the tumor to reach the best possible degree. Radiotherapy can achieve the effect of surgical resection in some tumors, but the cost of radiotherapy is high, the cycle is long and there are more complications. Traditional tumor treatment cannot fully satisfy the patients’ therapeutic wishes, and emerging tumor treatments have followed, including targeted therapy, hormone therapy, specific inhibitors, tumor immunotherapy, etc. In recent years, tumor immunotherapy has become the most popular treatment for tumors. In recent years, tumor immunity has become a big hotspot in the field of tumor therapy research. Simply put, it is to use the patient’s own immune system to kill or inhibit tumor cells. When a foreign body invades the organism, it will form antigen and stimulate the body’s immune system, but the tumor will produce some signal molecules to “brake” the body’s immune system, so that it can’t play its normal role. Tumor immunotherapy is to fight against this kind of “braking” system of the tumor, so as to let the body’s immune system work normally again, and ultimately control and kill the tumor cells. Since tumor immunotherapy works on the immune system itself, theoretically, it can be applied to different tumor treatments. Immune checkpoints: the basis of specific immunotherapy “When fighting a war, there are often sentry points, checkpoints at the border. When an enemy enters, he can check it out and capture them. Once the sentry point creates a problem, the enemy comes in and we don’t recognize them, the sentry point thinks it’s one of their own and lets them in, and that leads to the creation of cancer.” Prof. Lu Shun used a graphic analogy to explain the theory of immune checkpoints. This is the theoretical basis of the latest international research on tumor immunotherapy. Theoretically, people live in a natural environment and are constantly exposed to external stimuli, physical and chemical, which can easily lead to genetic mutations. Why don’t most people get cancer? Because the human body itself has an immune system, we have lymphocytes and an immune surveillance mechanism. If there is any change, the immune system will work automatically to kill the “foreign stuff”. In tumor patients, this mechanism generates immune tolerance. Prof. Lu Shun pointed out: “Because the immune response has a problem, thinking that the enemy is our own people, or that my troops have a problem, and I can’t fight the enemy, this is when the immune mechanism has a problem. Our current scientific research has found that immune cells have immune checkpoints, of which there are now more than 20 known. We have found drugs at two of these checkpoints that can interrupt the mechanism that creates tolerance and enable it to regain that function. Putting back in place the ability to make me have a fight to fight. The immune cells are reactivated and that’s the basis of the specific immunotherapy that we have now.” This is different from some hospitals that use the so-called “immunotherapy” as a signboard to “cure all diseases”, Prof. Lu Shun pointed out that in solid tumors, only specific immunotherapy can really benefit patients’ survival. Immunotherapy: 20% of patients with squamous metastatic cancer are expected to live more than 10 years Implemented to specific diseases, specific immunotherapy first in solid tumors is successful in the treatment of melanoma, the U.S. FDA approved Bristol-Myers Squibb ipilimumab (anti-CTLA-4 monoclonal antibody) on the market in 2011, which is the world’s first real sense of tumor immunotherapy drugs approved for marketing. Since the New York Times and Science Magazine named tumor immunotherapy a “major breakthrough” in 2013, tumor immunotherapy has continued to rise in popularity, with surprising clinical advances in the treatment of almost all types of tumors, including melanoma, lung cancer, gastric cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer and colorectal cancer. With the deepening of research, scientists have succeeded in finding another immune response point, PD-1/PD-L1, in lung, bowel, and prostate cancers, etc. Anti-PD-1/PD-L1 immunotherapy is a new class of anti-cancer immunotherapies that is currently gaining attention, which aims to utilize the body’s own immune system to fight against cancer by blocking the PD-1/PD-L1 signaling pathway, resulting in the death of the cancer cells, and has the potential to treat many types of tumors. which has the potential to treat many types of tumors. Prof. Lu Shun pointed out, “Several companies, including Bristol-Myers Squibb, are currently researching drugs such as PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors, which are expected to become a new cornerstone of tumor treatment.” The U.S. FDA approved nivolumab, a PD-1 inhibitor, in March for the treatment of metastatic squamous cell non-small cell lung cancer with disease progression during or after platinum-containing doublet chemotherapy, and on October 10 approved nivolumab for the indication of second-line non-squamous cell non-small cell lung cancer. Currently, a number of drugs have been approved by the U.S. FDA, Japan, and the European Union in areas such as lung cancer and melanoma, etc. A phase 3 clinical study of nivolumab for non-small cell lung cancer will be conducted in China this year, bringing Chinese patients closer to having access to the latest international tumor immunotherapy. “As far as lung cancer is concerned, the approved drug is in the treatment of metastatic squamous cell non-small cell lung cancer.” Prof. Lu Shun told reporters, “Immunotherapy, once effective, lasts a long time. It’s something that we can’t achieve with all the modern treatments that we have at the moment, and once it’s effective, there will be 20% of people who will live past 10 years. And living past 10 years is very remarkable for a metastatic tumor patient!