Perioperative immunotherapy for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Dan D Wei; Jin M Fang; Huan Z Wang; Jian Chen; Shuai Kong; Yan-Yi Jiang; Yuan Jiang

doi:10.3389/fimmu.2024.1330785

Perioperative immunotherapy for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Front Immunol. 2024 Feb 19:15:1330785. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2024.1330785. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Dan D Wei^{1

2

3}, Jin M Fang^{1

3}, Huan Z Wang¹, Jian Chen², Shuai Kong^{2

3}, Yan-Yi Jiang^{2

3}, Yuan Jiang^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Esophageal and Gastrointestinal Tumor Center, Hefei Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, China.
² Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Medical Physics and Technology; Institute of Health and Medical Technology, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, China.
³ Science Island Branch of Graduate School, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.

Abstract

Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is the main prevalent histological subtype and accounts for 85% of esophageal cancer cases worldwide. Traditional treatment for ESCC involves chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery. However, the overall prognosis remains unfavorable. Recently, immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapy using anti-programmed cell death-1 (PD-1)/PD-1 ligand (PD-L1) antibodies have not only achieved remarkable benefits in the clinical management of ESCC but have also completely changed the treatment approach for this cancer. In just a few years, ICB therapy has rapidly advanced and been added to standard first-line treatment regimen in patients with ESCC. However, preoperative immunotherapy is yet to be approved. In this review, we summarize the ICB antibodies commonly used in clinical immunotherapy of ESCC, and discuss the advances of immunotherapy combined with chemotherapy and radiotherapy in the perioperative treatment of ESCC, aiming to provide reference for clinical management of ESCC patients across the whole course of treatment.

Keywords: PD1/PD-L1; chemotherapy; esophageal squamous cell carcinoma; immune checkpoint blockade; immunotherapy.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Antibodies
Esophageal Neoplasms* / therapy
Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma* / therapy
Humans
Immunotherapy
Programmed Cell Death 1 Receptor
Radioimmunotherapy

Substances

Programmed Cell Death 1 Receptor
Antibodies

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82103315 and 82273010 to Y-YJ, 32100476 to YJ), Anhui Provincial Natural Science Foundation (2208085J44 to Y-YJ, 2108085MC77 to YJ), and the CASHIPS Directors Fund (BJPY2022B09 to Y-YJ, YZJJ202105 to YJ). The CASHIPS Director’s Fund (YZJJ2023QN49 to DW), and the Excellent Youth Project of Hefei Cancer Hospital (YQJH2021003 to DW).