- 期刊
- OpenAccess
Immunotherapy With Check Point Inhibitors for HNSCC: How Far We Can Reach?
摘要
Background: Immunotherapy has become the spotlight in treatment of head and neck cancer (HNC) in recent years. The application of diverse immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) significantly improves the prognosis and outcomes of HNC. ICIs display their effects not only on targeting immune cells but also on the regulation of tumor microenvironment. Methods: A literature review. Results: We reviewed the reported studies and ongoing clinical trials associated with ICIs with programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1)/ PD ligand 1 (PD-L1) and cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen 4 (CTLA-4) and focused on the potential clinical applications for HNC. The results of monotherapy with either PD-1/PD-L1 or CTLA- 4 were not satisfactory in clinical trials of the past decade. Immunotherapy combined with chemotherapy, targeted therapy, or another immunotherapy became more dominant for better efficacy and tolerable toxicity. The optimal immunotherapy combination of different pathways, according to the genomic profiling, is the most urgent issue to resolve currently. Conclusions: Immunotherapy combination with another different pathway has came a trend recently. However, more personalized therapeutic strategies warrant further investigations in the era of precision medicine.