Immunotherapy for pancreatic cancer: A 2020 update

Abstract

Pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PAC) is associated with extremely poor prognosis and remains a lethal malignancy. The main cure for PAC is surgical resection. Further treatment modalities, such as surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and other locoregional therapies provide low survival rates. Currently, many clinical trials seek to assess the efficacy of immunotherapeutic strategies in PAC, including immune checkpoint inhibitors, cancer vaccines, adoptive cell transfer, combinations with other immunotherapeutic agents, chemoradiotherapy or other molecularly targeted agents; however, none of these studies have shown practice changing results. There seems to be a synergistic effect with increased response rates when a combinatorial approach of immunotherapy in conjunction with other modalities is being exploited. In this review, we illustrate the current role of immunotherapy in PAC.

Keywords: Adoptive cellular immunotherapy; Cancer vaccines; Immune checkpoint inhibitors; Immunotherapy; Microsatellite instability; Pancreatic cancer.