title: Emerging immunotherapy for the treatment of esophageal cancer.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Esophageal cancer is the third most common cancer of the gastrointestinal tract. Despite new therapies, the prognosis for patients with these cancers remains poor with 5-year survival rates lower than 15%. Recently, immunotherapy has increasingly gained attention as a novel treatment strategy for advanced esophageal cancer.
  
  
  METHODS
  Recent success of immunotherapy in treating other solid tumors has shed light on the utility of these approaches for esophageal cancers. Here, the authors focus on antibody-based, adoptive-cell-therapy-based, and vaccine-based immunotherapies, and briefly address their rationale, clinical data, and implications.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Immunotherapy is now established to be a key treatment modality that can improve the outcomes of many cancer patients and appears to be ushering in a new era in cancer treatment. Checkpoint inhibitor drugs have shown preliminary favorable results in esophageal cancer treatment. Adoptive cell therapy and vaccine studies have also shown some promise in various clinical studies. Future endeavors will need to focus on identifying patients who are likely to benefit from immunotherapy, monitoring and managing immune responses and designing optimal combination strategies where immunotherapy agents are combined with other traditional treatment modalities.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology , Washington University in St. Louis , St. Louis , Missouri , USA.
authors.forename: SeungJu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jackie Oh
authors.affiliation: b College of Pharmacy and Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences , Seoul National University , Seoul , Korea.
authors.forename: Songhee
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: b College of Pharmacy and Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences , Seoul National University , Seoul , Korea.
authors.forename: Wooin
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: c Division of Oncology, Department of Medicine , Washington University School of Medicine , St. Louis , Missouri , USA.
authors.forename: A Craig
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Lockhart
mesh_terms: D019496:Cancer Vaccines / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000276:immunology / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D007167:Immunotherapy / Q000379:methods*; D016219:Immunotherapy, Adoptive / Q000379:methods; D011379:Prognosis; D015996:Survival Rate
chemical_list: D019496:Cancer Vaccines
keywords: Immunotherapy; adoptive cell therapy; antibody; cancer vaccine; esophageal cancer