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Review
. 2021 Mar 12:14:1873-1882.
doi: 10.2147/OTT.S269671. eCollection 2021.

Current Progress and Future Perspectives of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors in Biliary Tract Cancer

Poshita-Kumari Seesaha #  1 , Kang-Xin Wang #  2 , Guo-Qun Wang  2 , Ting-Yun Cui  2 , Feng-Jiao Zhao  1 , Lan-Lan Pan  1 , Xiang-Cheng Li  3 , Yong-Qian Shu  1 , Xiao-Feng Chen  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Current Progress and Future Perspectives of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors in Biliary Tract Cancer

Poshita-Kumari Seesaha et al. Onco Targets Ther. .

Abstract

Biliary tract cancer (BTC) is an uncommon and aggressive neoplasm, with most patients presenting in an advanced stage. Systemic chemotherapy is the limited treatment available but is unsatisfactory, while targeted therapy is still awaiting validation from clinical trials. Given the potential effect of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) in the treatment of BTC, this review aims to summarize the evidence-based benefits and predictive biomarkers for using inhibitors of cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein-4 (CTLA-4) ligand, or programmed cell death protein-1 and its ligand (PD-1 and PD-L1) as monotherapy or combined with other anti-tumor therapies, while also pointing out certain pitfalls with the use of ICIs which need to be addressed.

Keywords: biliary tract cancer; clinical evidence; immune checkpoint inhibitors; immunotherapy; predictive biomarkers.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest for this work.

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