PD-L1和VEGF双靶点联合阻断治疗的研究进展

免疫检查点抑制剂(immune checkpoint inhibitors,ICIs)通过阻断负调控免疫信号激活宿主抗肿瘤免疫反应。临床试验表明,ICIs的治疗能够明显引起部分晚期癌症患者的肿瘤消退。在临床实践中,ICIs治疗的一个主要问题是药物应答率低。尽管PD-L1表达、错配修复缺陷、肿瘤浸润性淋巴细胞状态等多种预测生物标志物已被用于筛选对治疗有应答的患者,但ICIs单药治疗的耐药性仍存在。近期研究表明,联合抗VEGF治疗可以减轻ICIs的耐药性。VEGF能抑制肿瘤生长和转移所必需的血管生成,同时能够对肿瘤免疫微环境进行重编程,减轻ICIs的耐药性。目前已针对此双靶点的联合治疗开展了很多临床试验,并获得了令人振奋的结果。对抗PD-L1联合抗VEGF治疗的作用机制以及PD-L1/VEGF联合阻断治疗的临床研究进行了综述汇总。     

肾癌免疫治疗的研究进展CSCD

肾癌起源于肾小管上皮,恶性程度很高,患者就诊时大多已经发生转移。虽然VEGF和m TOR为主的靶向治疗大大改善了肾癌的治疗现状,但患者最终会出现耐药。幸运的是肾癌具有潜在的免疫原性,PD-1/PD-L1抑制剂、个体化疫苗和CAR-T疗法等免疫疗法显示了巨大的临床效益。而且PD-1/PD-L1抑制剂与抑制血管生成或CDK4/6抑制剂等药物联合使用可以发挥出更强的治疗效果。在肾细胞癌中针对免疫治疗靶点和肿瘤生物学的进一步研究有望提供更有效的治疗手段,改善患者预后。然而这些新的免疫疗法发挥作用的同时,随之也会带来很多毒副作用。因此探索预测治疗反应的生物标志物十分重要,可以帮助确定哪些肾细胞癌患者适合这类治疗,提高治疗效应并使毒副作用降到最低。本文就肾癌中新的免疫治疗通过不同的分子机制抑制肾癌的发展和用于治疗的靶点而展开综述。     

肾癌免疫治疗的研究进展

肾癌起源于肾小管上皮,恶性程度很高,患者就诊时大多已经发生转移。虽然VEGF和m TOR为主的靶向治疗大大改善了肾癌的治疗现状,但患者最终会出现耐药。幸运的是肾癌具有潜在的免疫原性,PD-1/PD-L1抑制剂、个体化疫苗和CAR-T疗法等免疫疗法显示了巨大的临床效益。而且PD-1/PD-L1抑制剂与抑制血管生成或CDK4/6抑制剂等药物联合使用可以发挥出更强的治疗效果。在肾细胞癌中针对免疫治疗靶点和肿瘤生物学的进一步研究有望提供更有效的治疗手段,改善患者预后。然而这些新的免疫疗法发挥作用的同时,随之也会带来很多毒副作用。因此探索预测治疗反应的生物标志物十分重要,可以帮助确定哪些肾细胞癌患者适合这类治疗,提高治疗效应并使毒副作用降到最低。本文就肾癌中新的免疫治疗通过不同的分子机制抑制肾癌的发展和用于治疗的靶点而展开综述。     

肿瘤精准免疫诊断综合评估

近年来,肿瘤免疫治疗(cancer immunotherapies)已成为晚期恶性肿瘤治疗的重要手段之一。肿瘤免疫治疗并不直接攻击癌细胞,而是通过调节人体自身免疫系统来抗击肿瘤,有望像抗生素改变抗感染治疗一样改变肿瘤治疗范式。抗PD-1/L1和抗CTLA-4抗体药物作为肿瘤免疫治疗的代表药物,使晚期癌症患者五年生存率达成了数倍的提升,被认为是真正有希望治愈癌症的治疗方式。然而,肿瘤免疫治疗只对部分患者有效,并且存在耐药、超进展、不良反应等问题。如何准确筛选出最有可能从治疗中获益的人群成为肿瘤免疫治疗研究中的一个重大挑战。目前有多个与免疫治疗相关的生物标志物正在研究中,并且有望被用于临床筛选治疗获益人群;但这些生物标记物也存在很多缺陷。未来,围绕免疫治疗敏感性和副反应的多项指标综合评估可能成为一个趋势。     

头颈部鳞癌生物标志物的预后作用

头颈部鳞癌(HNSCC)是世界上常见的恶性肿瘤之一。尽管现有治疗手段不断完善,HNSCC的5年生存率仍徘徊在50%。肿瘤生物标志物是由肿瘤细胞合成、释放或是宿主对肿瘤的反应而释放的物质。它有助于肿瘤的分子诊断、预后判断及疗效预测。因此生物标志物具有诊断、预后和预测三大作用。本文分别就与HNSCC相关的临床确定的和正在热研的,主要具有预后作用的生物标志物进行阐述。临床确定的标志物包括EBV和HPV。迄今为止众多生物标志物被研究且结果喜人。本文介绍的热研的标志物包括细胞周期调控、转录因子和信号传导三个方面。除了综述生物标志物预后作用的最新研究信息,还对研究中出现预后作用不一致的原因进行分析。分子细胞生物学的发展促使更多的生物标志物及潜在治疗靶点被发现。从预后到预测的发展是实施肿瘤个体化治疗的目标。以生物标志物为治疗靶点,有望改善HNSCC的预后,实现个体化精准治疗。     

乳腺癌免疫治疗：生物标志物、药物及疫苗

虽然近年来肿瘤的治疗取得较大进展,乳腺癌依旧是威胁女性健康的主要杀手。近年来,乳腺癌相关的免疫治疗取得较大进展,肿瘤浸润淋巴细胞(TILs)、程序性死亡受体 1(PD 1)及其配体PD L1、肿瘤突变负荷等肿瘤标志物对乳腺癌免疫治疗具有预测作用,并与乳腺癌的预后相关。免疫检查点抑制剂,例如PD-1/PD-L1及细胞毒性T淋巴细胞抗原4(CTLA 4)抑制剂在乳腺癌中取得极大进展,各期临床试验结果显示不同的效用。肿瘤疫苗的使用为乳腺癌免疫治疗的另一途径,虽然部分疫苗在临床试验中取得较好成效,但绝大多数仍需深入研究,乳腺癌免疫治疗之途仅为开端,依旧需要大量研究。本文简要介绍了乳腺癌免疫治疗相关的生物标志物、免疫检查点抑制剂以及肿瘤疫苗的研究进展。     

卵巢癌生物治疗的现状与进展

由于卵巢癌的早期临床症状较不明显,大部分患者就诊时就处于晚期阶段,这对其有效治疗造成了很大困难,使其成为妇科病死率最高的恶性肿瘤,一直广受关注。但目前传统的手术与放化疗方法的治疗效果不佳。近年来随着基础研究工作的不断发展与深入,生物治疗作为新的肿瘤治疗方法引起了人们的重视。生物治疗作为第四种卵巢癌的治疗模式,其采取的针对不同靶位点和靶途径的策略很大程度上促进了卵巢癌治疗的理论和实践研究。生物治疗主要是运用基因治疗、免疫治疗和重组病毒治疗的方法对患者进行治疗,基因治疗包括细胞毒性或自杀基因治疗、纠错性基因治疗、免疫增强性基因治疗和抗肿瘤血管生成基因治疗等。而免疫治疗又分为主动和被动免疫治疗,前者包括树突状细胞疫苗、自体肿瘤疫苗和分子疫苗治疗等,后者如细胞因子治疗、单克隆抗体拮抗治疗以及细胞过继免疫治疗等。上述目前在卵巢癌治疗研究中已取得了一些成果,本文就其卵巢癌的生物治疗现状与进展做一综述。     

基于细胞膜和细胞的仿生递药系统改善肿瘤免疫治疗效果

肿瘤免疫治疗已成为各种原发性和转移性癌症的有效治疗方式。纳米药物递送系统(nano drug delivery system, NDDS)具有生物利用度高、靶向性好的优点,在肿瘤靶向治疗和免疫治疗等方面受到广泛关注。然而,传统的NDDS在临床应用中存在易被免疫系统识别和清除、跨越生物屏障能力差等问题。仿生药物递送系统(biomimetic drug delivery system, BDDS)以其良好的生物相容性和较低的免疫原性成为新一代极具前景的治疗策略。哺乳动物的细胞(如红细胞、血小板、单核细胞、巨噬细胞、中性粒细胞和T淋巴细胞等)及其细胞膜源于母体生物系统,具有独特的生物学特征,成为研究的热点。该文综述了近年来基于细胞膜和细胞的BDDS在改善肿瘤免疫治疗中的最新进展,重点介绍了这些BDDS的构建方式、表征手段和应用研究,并对其在改善肿瘤免疫治疗效果领域面临的挑战及未来的发展进行了讨论。     

液体活检对食管癌诊疗和预后的价值

食管癌是一种全球性的恶性肿瘤,由于其进展迅速并缺乏早期发现和有效预后的生物标志物,造成了患者较高的死亡率和较差的预后情况。近些年来,在精准肿瘤诊疗的大背景下,液体活检作为一种新兴的非侵入性检测方法,在食管癌疾病进展中可以实现动态监测,逐渐在临床上引起关注。液体活检通过从体液中获取肿瘤相关的生物标志物,如循环肿瘤DNA、循环肿瘤细胞、外泌体内容物等,来评估肿瘤的存在、特征和预后等。对食管癌患者进行及时有效的预后评估有助于改善其临床结局,故该文将对液体活检在食管癌的诊疗和预后中的科学研究及临床应用现状进行详细阐述,并指出目前液体活检中存在的挑战及其未来发展方向,期望能为食管癌的早期和超早期诊断、疗效动态监测、预后评估、个体化精准治疗决策的制定提供依据。     

溶瘤病毒的肿瘤治疗进展

溶瘤病毒(oncolytic viruses, OVs)是一种具有发展潜力的肿瘤免疫治疗方法,是天然或经基因改造后对肿瘤具有靶向性的DNA病毒和RNA病毒。溶瘤病毒具有肿瘤靶向性、作为载体传递多种转基因表达、诱导免疫性细胞死亡和促进抗肿瘤免疫反应等优点,而且具有可耐受的安全性。该文将从溶瘤病毒的发展历程、分类、作用机制、改造策略、生物标志物和临床应用的研究现状和现存问题展开综述。     

Targeting interleukin-17 enhances tumor response to immune checkpoint inhibitors in colorectal cancer

Although immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have gained much attention in managing cancer, only a minority of patients, especially those with tumors that have been classified as immunologically “cold” such as microsatellite stable (MSS) colorectal cancers (CRC), experience clinical benefit from ICIs. Surprisingly, interleukin-17 (IL-17) and its primary source Th17 are enriched in CRC and inversely associated with patient outcome. Our previous study revealed that IL-17A could upregulate programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression and impede the efficacy of immunotherapy. IL-17, therefore, can be a possible target to sensitize tumor cells to ICIs. The detailed clinical results from our trial, which is the first to show the benefits of the combination of anti-PD-1 with anti-IL-17 therapy for MSS CRC, have also been presented. In this review, we highlight the role of IL-17 in ICIs resistance and summarize the current clinical evidence for the use of combination therapy. Directions for future strategies to warm up immunologically “cold” MSS CRCs have also been proposed.     

Immunologic biomarkers as correlates of clinical response to cancer immunotherapy

Over the last few years, several newly developed immune-based cancer therapies have been shown to induce clinical responses in significant numbers of patients. As a result, there is a need to identify immune biomarkers capable of predicting clinical response. If there were laboratory parameters that could define patients with improved disease outcomes after immunomodulation, product development would accelerate, optimization of existing immune-based treatments would be facilitated and patient selection for specific interventions might be optimized. Although there are no validated cancer immunologic biomarkers that are predictive of clinical response currently in widespread use, there is much published literature that has informed investigators as to which markers may be the most promising. Population-based studies of endogenous tumor immune infiltrates and gene expression analyses have identified specific cell populations and phenotypes of immune cells that are most likely to mediate anti-tumor immunity. Further, clinical trials of cancer vaccines and other cancer directed immunotherapy have identified candidate immunologic biomarkers that are statistically associated with beneficial clinical outcomes after immune-based cancer therapies. Biomarkers that measure the magnitude of the Type I immune response generated with immune therapy, epitope spreading, and autoimmunity are readily detected in the peripheral blood and, in clinical trials of cancer immunotherapy, have been associated with response to treatment.     

Monitoring the immune competence of cancer patients to predict outcome

A new era of cancer immunotherapy has brought not only successful cancer vaccines but also immunomodulators, such as those that target checkpoint blockade in order to induce endogenous host immune responses. However, the immune system of cancer patients can be compromised through multiple means, including immune suppression by the tumor and by prior therapies such as chemotherapy and radiation. Therefore, a comprehensive means of assessing patient immunocompetence would seem helpful for determining whether patients are ready to benefit from immunotherapy, and perhaps even which immunotherapy might be most appropriate for them. Unfortunately, there are no standardized tests for immune competence, nor is there agreement on what to measure and what will be predictive of outcome. In this review, we will discuss the technologies and assays that might be most useful for this purpose. We argue for a comprehensive approach that should maximize the chances of developing predictive biomarkers for eventual clinical use.     

Combinational adenovirus-mediated gene therapy and dendritic cell vaccine in combating well-established tumors

Recent developments in tumor immunology and biotechnology have made cancer gene therapy and immunotherapy feasible. The current efforts for cancer gene therapy mainly focus on using immunogenes, chemogenes and tumor suppressor genes. Central to all these therapies is the development of efficient vectors for gene therapy. By far, adenovirus （AdV）-mediated gene therapy is one of the most promising approaches, as has confirmed by studies relating to animal tumor models and clinical trials. Dendritic cells （DCs） are highly efficient, specialized antigen-presenting cells, and DC- based tumor vaccines are regarded as having much potential in cancer immunotherapy. Vaccination with DCs pulsed with tumor peptides, lysates, or RNA, or loaded with apoptotic/necrotic tumor cells, or engineered to express certain cytokines or chemokines could induce significant antitumor cytotoxic T lymphocyte （CTL） responses and antitumor immunity. Although both AdV-mediated gene therapy and DC vaccine can both stimulate antitumor immune responses, their therapeutic efficiency has been limited to generation of prophylactic antitumor immunity against re-challenge with the parental tumor cells or to growth inhibition of small tumors. However, this approach has been unsuccessful in combating well-established tumors in animal models. Therefore, a major strategic goal of current cancer immunotherapy has become the development of novel therapeutic strategies that can combat well-established tumors, thus resembling real clinical practice since a good proportion of cancer patients generally present with significant disease. In this paper, we review the recent progress in AdV-mediated cancer gene therapy and DC-based cancer vaccines, and discuss combined immunotherapy including gene therapy and DC vaccines. We underscore the fact that combined therapy may have some advantages in combating well-established tumors vis-a-vis either modality administered as a monotherapy.     

Secretome compartment is a valuable source of biomarkers for cancer-relevant pathways

In principle, targeted therapies have optimal activity against a specific subset of tumors that depend upon the targeted molecule or pathway for growth, survival, or metastasis. Consequently, it is important in drug development and clinical practice to have predictive biomarkers that can reliably identify patients who will benefit from a given therapy. We analyzed tumor cell-line secretomes (conditioned cell media) to look for predictive biomarkers; secretomes represent a potential source for potential biomarkers that are expressed in intracellular signaling and therefore may reflect changes induced by targeted therapy. Using Gene Ontology, we classified by function the secretome proteins of 12 tumor cell lines of different histotypes. Representations and hierarchical relationships among the functional groups differed among the cell lines. Using bioinformatics tools, we identified proteins involved in intracellular signaling pathways. For example, we found that secretome proteins related to TGF-beta signaling in thyroid cancer cells, such as vasorin, CD109, and βIG-H3 (TGFBI), were sensitive to RPI-1 and dasatinib treatments, which have been previously demonstrated to be effective in blocking cell proliferation. The secretome may be a valuable source of potential biomarkers for detecting cancer and measuring the effectiveness of cancer therapies.     

Biomarkers for the development of cancer vaccines: current status

Significant improvements in our knowledge of tumor immunology have resulted in more sophisticated vaccine approaches for the treatment of cancer. However, research into biomarkers that correlate with the clinical outcome of immunotherapy has lagged behind vaccine development. To this extent, very few immunological or other markers exist that can be used in clinical trials for immunotherapy. In this review, we discuss the current status of biomarker development specifically for the monitoring and development of cancer vaccines. This includes immunological biomarkers (measurement of T-cell and cytokine responses), autoimmunity as a correlate for treatment outcome, and the possible development of multiple biomarkers using high-throughput proteomics technologies. The generation of such biomarkers will allow us to make clinical decisions about patient treatment at an earlier stage and should aid in shortening the development time for vaccines.     

Immunotherapy in colorectal cancer: current achievements and future perspective

Following dramatic success in many types of advanced solid tumors, interest in immunotherapy for the treatment of colorectal cancer (CRC) is increasingly growing. Given the compelling long-term durable remission, two programmed cell death 1 (PD-1)-blocking antibodies, pembrolizumab and nivolumab (with or without Ipilimumab), have been approved for the treatment of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) that is mismatch-repair-deficient and microsatellite instability-high (dMMR-MSI-H). Practice-changing results of several randomized controlled trials to move immunotherapy into the first-line treatment for MSI-H metastasis cancer and earlier stage were reported successively in the past 2 years. Besides, new intriguing advances to expand the efficacy of immunotherapy to mCRC that is mismatch-repair-proficient and low microsatellite instability (pMMR-MSI-L) demonstrated the potential benefits for the vast majority of mCRC cases. Great attention is also paid to the advances in cancer vaccines and adoptive cell therapy (ACT). In this review, we summarize the above progresses, and also highlight the current predictive biomarkers of responsiveness in immunotherapy with broad clinical utility.     

Assessment of clinical studies evaluating combinations of immune checkpoint inhibitors with locoregional treatments in solid tumors

In the last decade, immunotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) has changed the therapeutic algorithm of cancer patients. ICIs combined with other therapeutic options, such as chemo- and targeted therapies, generate impressive results in cancer patients. Locoregional treatments (LRTs) play an important role in the management of various solid tumors (e.g., hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), neuroendocrine tumors, etc.), and this therapeutic approach may enhance the activity of the immune response to tumor cells destroying primary tumors and leading to the release of several soluble molecules. This systematic review was performed to identify studies reporting objective response rate (ORR) and survival information in patients with solid tumors treated with ICIs plus LRTs. In the present work, fourteen studies were included, and the majority of them (five studies) enrolled patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), whereas the others included patients with different diseases. The highest ORRs were seen in HCC (67%, Y-90 RE plus ipilimumab and nivolumab) and melanoma (38%, dendritic cells with mRNA plus ipilimumab) patients. ORRs were not observed in liver metastases from melanoma and colorectal cancer. These data suggest that combination of ICIs and LRTs is feasible and more active in primary tumors (particularly HCC) than metastases with a synergistic effect on antitumor immunity. However, further studies are needed to better select patients, schedules, and setting of treatments.