Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 Jun 3;9(6):1721.
doi: 10.3390/jcm9061721.

Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors: A Promising Choice for Endometrial Cancer Patients?

Lucia Musacchio  1 , Serena Maria Boccia  1 , Giuseppe Caruso  1 , Giusi Santangelo  1 , Margherita Fischetti  1 , Federica Tomao  1 , Giorgia Perniola  1 , Innocenza Palaia  1 , Ludovico Muzii  1 , Sandro Pignata  2 , Pierluigi Benedetti Panici  1 , Violante Di Donato  1
Affiliations
Review

Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors: A Promising Choice for Endometrial Cancer Patients?

Lucia Musacchio et al. J Clin Med. .

Abstract

Although around 80% of endometrial cancers are diagnosed at early stages and present with a 5-year survival rate exceeding 95%, patients with advanced and recurrent disease show a poor prognosis and low response rates to standard chemotherapy. In the era of targeted therapy, the great advances in the understanding of programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) upregulation in cancer cells, which is responsible for tumor immune escape, have contributed to the increasing interest in immune checkpoint inhibitors as a promising strategy for the treatment of several refractory solid malignancies, including endometrial cancer. Several clinical trials have investigated the efficacy and safety of immune checkpoint inhibitors in endometrial cancer, which already led to the approval of the anti-programmed cell death protein 1 (anti-PD-1) antibody pembrolizumab as a satisfactory alternative for selected patients with unresectable or metastatic disease. As the future of cancer treatment will probably rely on combination therapy strategies, currently, innovative ongoing trials are exploring the potential role of immune checkpoint inhibitors associated with chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and other targeted therapies. Moreover, further research is warranted to discover new specific biomarkers that can accurately predict the response to immunotherapy.

Keywords: endometrial cancer; immune checkpoint inhibitors; targeted therapy.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

References

    1. Bray F., Ferlay J., Soerjomataram I., Siegel R.L., Torre L.A., Jemal A. Global cancer statistics 2018: GLOBOCAN estimates of incidence and mortality worldwide for 36 cancers in 185 countries. CA Cancer J. Clin. 2018;68:394–424. doi: 10.3322/caac.21492. - DOI - PubMed
    1. American Cancer Society. [(accessed on 20 February 2020)]; Available online: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/endometrial-cancer/about/key-statistics.html.
    1. Colombo N., Creutzberg C., Amant F., Bosse T., González-Martín A., Ledermann J., Marth C., Nout R., Querleu D., Mirza M., et al. ESMO-ESGO-ESTRO Consensus Conference on Endometrial Cancer: Diagnosis, treatment and follow-up. Ann. Oncol. 2017;27:16–41. doi: 10.1093/annonc/mdv484. - DOI - PubMed
    1. National Cancer Institute Endometrial cancer treatment Physician Data Query (PDQ) [(accessed on 20 February 2020)];2019 Available online: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/endometrial/healthprofe....
    1. NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology. [(accessed on 20 February 2020)]; Available online: https://www.nccn.org/professionals/physician_gls/pdf/uterine.pdf.