Clinical Applications of Combined Immunotherapy Approaches in Gastrointestinal Cancer: A Case-Based Review

Abstract

Malignant neoplasms arising from the gastrointestinal (GI) tract are among the most common types of cancer with high mortality rates. Despite advances in treatment in a small subgroup harboring targetable mutations, the outcome remains poor, accounting for one in three cancer-related deaths observed globally. As a promising therapeutic option in various tumor types, immunotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors has also been evaluated in GI cancer, albeit with limited efficacy except for a small subgroup expressing microsatellite instability. In the quest for more effective treatment options, energetic efforts have been placed to evaluate the role of several immunotherapy approaches comprising of cancer vaccines, adoptive cell therapies and immune checkpoint inhibitors. In this review, we report our experience with a personalized dendritic cell cancer vaccine and cytokine-induced killer cell therapy in three patients with GI cancers and summarize current clinical data on combined immunotherapy strategies.

HER2-Positive Gastric Cancer and Antibody Treatment: State of the Art and Future Developments

“…Cancer vaccines provide tumor neoantigens (whole cells or characteristic components) to prime T and B lymphocytes against tumor epitopes [113]. In case of HER2-overexpressing gastric cancer, the IMU-131/HER-Vaxx was tolerable and safe in a phase I study and provided humoral, cellular and clinical responses in a dose-dependent manner.…”