Progress of immunotherapy in the treatment of pancreatic cancer

Abstract

As a highly aggressive malignancy characterized by a high rate of morbidity and mortality, pancreatic cancer (PC) is a solid tumor ranking seventh among all cancer deaths. Since clinical symptoms are hidden and effective early diagnostic methods are unavailable, it is common that patients with PC are at an advanced stage once diagnosed and cannot be radically treated by surgical resection. The universal existing anticancer treatments are chemotherapy and radiotherapy, but the therapeutic effect of PC is not obvious. Recent researches witness encouraging success in immunotherapy used for hematologic tumors which resulted in immunotherapy becoming the hotspot of cancer treatment over the past few years. Many researchers started to turn their attention to its application in other cancer treatments and therapy in melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has made great progress. Through further research on the mechanism of immunotherapy, many novel cancer treatments start to emerge, such as adoptive T cell therapy, immune checkpoint inhibitors, tumor vaccines and oncolytic viruses. Many clinical trials proved that combining immunotherapy with traditional therapy, like surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy has a remarkable effect on the treatment of patients with PC. Individualized, combined, and precise therapy may be a promising direction for future immunotherapy in PC. The current understanding of the occurrence and development of PC, the progress in immunotherapy in cancer treatment, and the prospect of immunotherapy for PC will be briefly introduced in this review.