title: Current progress in immunotherapy for pancreatic cancer.
abstract: Pancreatic cancer remains one of the most lethal cancers with few treatment options. Immune-based strategies to treat pancreatic cancer, such as immune checkpoint inhibitors, therapeutic vaccines, and combination immunotherapies, are showing promise where other approaches have failed. Immune checkpoint inhibitors, including anti-CTLA4, anti-PD-1, and anti-PD-L1 antibodies, are effective as single agents in immune sensitive cancers like melanoma, but lack efficacy in immune insensitive cancers including pancreatic cancer. However, these inhibitors are showing clinical activity, even in traditionally non-immunogenic cancers, when combined with other interventions, including chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and therapeutic vaccines. Therapeutic vaccines given together with immune modulating agents are of particular interest because vaccines are the most efficient way to induce effective anti-tumor T cell responses, which is required for immunotherapies to be effective. In pancreatic cancer, early studies suggest that vaccines can induce T cells that have the potential to recognize and kill pancreatic cancer cells, but the tumor microenvironment inhibits effective T cell trafficking and function. While progress has been made in the development of immunotherapies for pancreatic cancer over the last several years, additional trials are needed to better understand the signals within the tumor microenvironment that are formidable barriers to T cell infiltration and function. Additionally, as more pancreatic specific antigens are identified, immunotherapies will continue to be refined to provide the most significant clinical benefit.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States; The Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States.
authors.forename: Kelly
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Foley
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States; The Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States; Department of Surgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States.
authors.forename: Victoria
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States; The Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States; The Skip Viragh Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research and Clinical Care, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States.
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Jaffee
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States; The Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States; Department of Surgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States; The Skip Viragh Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research and Clinical Care, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States. Electronic address: lzheng6@jhmi.edu.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zheng
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000906:Antibodies / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D019496:Cancer Vaccines / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D019008:Drug Resistance, Neoplasm; D006801:Humans; D058990:Molecular Targeted Therapy; D010190:Pancreatic Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000187:drug effects; D059016:Tumor Microenvironment
chemical_list: D000906:Antibodies; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents; D019496:Cancer Vaccines
keywords: Immune checkpoint; Immunotherapy; Pancreatic cancer; Vaccine