Immunotherapy for pancreatic cancer

Abstract

Introduction: Pancreatic cancer is among the most lethal malignancies resistant to conventional therapies. The vast majority of patients is diagnosed with advanced/metastatic disease and consequently has grim prognosis. Despite the available options with nab-paclitaxel and gemcitabine or 5-fluorouracil/leucovorin/oxaliplatin, chemotherapy offers a modest survival benefit. Targeted therapy in combination with chemotherapy has not shown significant improvement in treatment outcomes. The urgent need for new therapies has turned the spotlights on immunotherapy. Immunotherapy in pancreatic cancer recruits and activates T cells which recognize tumor-specific antigens.

Results: Preclinical models have demonstrated that chemotherapy or targeted therapy works synergistically with immunotherapy. A growing body of evidence has already been gathered regarding the efficacy of checkpoint inhibitors, vaccines, adoptive T cell therapy, monoclonal antibodies, and cytokines in patients with pancreatic cancer.

Conclusions: Many ongoing trials are aiming to identify treatments which could combine efficacy with limited toxicity. In this article, we review the available data concerning multiple aspects of immunotherapy in pancreatic cancer.

Keywords: Antibodies; Checkpoint inhibitors; Cytokines; Immunotherapy; Pancreatic cancer; Vaccines.