Current status of immune checkpoint inhibitors for gastric cancer

Recent breakthrough results from immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) have paved the way to a new era of cancer immunotherapy. In particular, inhibition of programmed death-1 (PD-1)/programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) axis with ICI including nivolumab and pembrolizumab has been emerging as a novel treat...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Gastric cancer : official journal of the International Gastric Cancer Association and the Japanese Gastric Cancer Association 2020-07, Vol.23 (4), p.565-578
Main Authors: Kono, Koji, Nakajima, Shotaro, Mimura, Kosaku
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abdominal Surgery
Biomarkers
Cancer immunotherapy
Cancer Research
Clinical aspects
Disease control
Epstein-Barr virus
Gastric cancer
Gastroenterology
Immune checkpoint inhibitors
Immunotherapy
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Microsatellite instability
Monoclonal antibodies
Oncology
PD-1 protein
PD-L1 protein
Pembrolizumab
Review Article
Surgical Oncology
Survival
Targeted cancer therapy
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Recent breakthrough results from immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) have paved the way to a new era of cancer immunotherapy. In particular, inhibition of programmed death-1 (PD-1)/programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) axis with ICI including nivolumab and pembrolizumab has been emerging as a novel treatment strategy for advanced gastric cancers (GC). In a meta-analysis for anti-PD-1/PD-L1 therapy in GC, the objective response rate was 12.0% and the disease control ratio was 34.7%. The ICI treatment in GC provided modest survival benefit and especially, anti-PD-1 treatment could improve the 12-month and 18-month overall survival rate and prolonged the duration of the response. Moreover, it is likely that anti-PD-1/PD-L1 therapy is more effective in subgroups with microsatellite instability-high, Epstein-Barr virus-positive or high mutation burden in advanced GC. The next steps for developing ICI in GC are mainly two challenges as follows. First is the identification of accurate biomarkers that can predict the response to ICI. The second challenge is the clinical development of combinatorial approaches to maximize the efficacy of ICI. In this review, recent advances in ICI for GC are discussed from a viewpoint of translational aspect including biomarkers and tumor microenvironment, and from a viewpoint of clinical aspects including combination therapies.
ISSN:1436-3291
1436-3305
DOI:10.1007/s10120-020-01090-4