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Review
. 2019 Jun 19;38(1):268.
doi: 10.1186/s13046-019-1266-0.

Advances in cancer immunotherapy 2019 - latest trends

Stephan Kruger  1   2 , Matthias Ilmer  3   4 , Sebastian Kobold  5 , Bruno L Cadilha  5 , Stefan Endres  5 , Steffen Ormanns  6 , Gesa Schuebbe  7 , Bernhard W Renz  3   4 , Jan G D'Haese  3 , Hans Schloesser  8 , Volker Heinemann  7   4 , Marion Subklewe  7   4   9 , Stefan Boeck  7   4 , Jens Werner  3 , Michael von Bergwelt-Baildon  7   4   10   9
Affiliations
Review

Advances in cancer immunotherapy 2019 - latest trends

Stephan Kruger et al. J Exp Clin Cancer Res. .

Abstract

Immunotherapy has become an established pillar of cancer treatment improving the prognosis of many patients with a broad variety of hematological and solid malignancies. The two main drivers behind this success are checkpoint inhibitors (CPIs) and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells. This review summarizes seminal findings from clinical and translational studies recently presented or published at important meetings or in top-tier journals, respectively. For checkpoint blockade, current studies focus on combinational approaches, perioperative use, new tumor entities, response prediction, toxicity management and use in special patient populations. Regarding cellular immunotherapy, recent studies confirmed safety and efficacy of CAR T cells in larger cohorts of patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia or diffuse large B cell lymphoma. Different strategies to translate the striking success of CAR T cells in B cell malignancies to other hematological and solid cancer types are currently under clinical investigation. Regarding the regional distribution of registered clinical immunotherapy trials a shift from PD-1 / PD-L1 trials (mainly performed in the US and Europe) to CAR T cell trials (majority of trials performed in the US and China) can be noted.

Keywords: Chimeric antigen receptor T cells (CAR T cells); Immunotherapy; Programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1); Programmed cell death protein ligand 1 (PD-L1); Regional distribution; Trends.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Included tumor types (a, b) and regional distribution (c) of clinical PD-1 / PD-L1 and CAR T cell trials in 2019. ClinicalTrials.gov was searched for “pd-l1” OR “pd-1” OR “programmed death ligand” OR “car t cell” OR “chimeric antigen receptor”. All registered trials were sorted for tumor type and country/region. Search was performed on 2019-05-06. Most frequent tumor types (a, b) and regions (c) are shown as indicated. Several clinical trials included multiple tumor types or were performed in more than one country/region. Abbreviations: GI: gastrointestinal, HN: head and neck
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Different strategies for adoptive T cell therapy. Abbreviations: CAR: chimeric antigen receptor, TCR: T cell receptor, TIL: tumor infiltrating lymphocytes
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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