Current Status and Future Perspective of Immunotherapy in Gastrointestinal Cancers

Zhihao Lu; Zhi Peng; Chang Liu; Zhenghang Wang; Yakun Wang; Xi Jiao; Jian Li; Lin Shen

doi:10.1016/j.xinn.2020.100041

Current Status and Future Perspective of Immunotherapy in Gastrointestinal Cancers

Innovation (Camb). 2020 Aug 10;1(2):100041. doi: 10.1016/j.xinn.2020.100041. eCollection 2020 Aug 28.

Authors

Zhihao Lu¹, Zhi Peng¹, Chang Liu¹, Zhenghang Wang¹, Yakun Wang¹, Xi Jiao¹, Jian Li¹, Lin Shen¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Gastrointestinal Oncology, Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education/Beijing), Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute, No. 52 FuCheng Road, Hai-Dian District, Beijing, 100142, China.

Abstract

Gastrointestinal (GI) cancers represent a major public health problem worldwide. Due to the late detection and high heterogeneity of GI cancers, traditional treatments, including surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and targeted therapy, have shown limited effects, and the overall prognosis of these patients remains poor. Recently, immunotherapy, involving programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) and its ligand (PD-L1), has shown promising efficacy in several solid cancers and seems to have become a potential treatment option for GI cancers This review focuses on data on the development of immunotherapy-based clinical trials in esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, and colorectal cancer. The predictive biomarkers and combination strategies in clinical trials and translational medicine are also discussed. Finally, prospects for immunotherapy in the treatment of GI cancers are described. Although only a small proportion of patients with GI cancers respond to PD-1/PD-L1 blockade, we strongly believe that precision immunotherapy might improve the overall survival of many more GI cancer patients in the future.

Keywords: biomarkers; gastrointestinal cancer; immune checkpoint blockade; precision immunotherapy.

Publication types

Review