Combination Immunotherapy Approaches for Pancreatic Cancer Treatment

Can J Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2018 Mar 7:2018:6240467. doi: 10.1155/2018/6240467. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is a lethal malignant disease with a very low medium survival. Currently, metastatic pancreatic cancer poorly responds to conventional treatments and exhibits an acute resistance to most chemotherapy. Few approaches have been shown to be effective for metastatic pancreatic cancer treatment. Novel therapeutic approaches to treat patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma are in great demand. Last decades, immunotherapies have been evaluated in clinical trials and received great success in many types of cancers. However, it has very limited success in treating pancreatic cancer. As pancreatic cancer poorly responds to many single immunotherapeutic agents, combination immunotherapy was introduced to improve efficacy. The combination therapies hold great promise for enhancing immune responses to achieve better therapeutic effects. This review summarizes the existing and potential combination immunotherapies for the treatment of pancreatic cancer.

Publication types

  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Adaptive Immunity
  • Animals
  • Antibodies, Monoclonal, Humanized / therapeutic use*
  • Antineoplastic Agents, Immunological / therapeutic use*
  • CTLA-4 Antigen / antagonists & inhibitors
  • Cancer Vaccines / therapeutic use
  • Carcinoma, Pancreatic Ductal / drug therapy*
  • Carcinoma, Pancreatic Ductal / therapy
  • Humans
  • Immunity, Innate
  • Immunotherapy / methods*
  • Pancreatic Neoplasms / therapy*
  • Programmed Cell Death 1 Receptor / antagonists & inhibitors
  • Receptors, Chimeric Antigen / therapeutic use*

Substances

  • Antibodies, Monoclonal, Humanized
  • Antineoplastic Agents, Immunological
  • CTLA-4 Antigen
  • Cancer Vaccines
  • GVAX vaccine
  • PDCD1 protein, human
  • Programmed Cell Death 1 Receptor
  • Receptors, Chimeric Antigen