Win or loss? Combination therapy does improve the oncolytic virus therapy to pancreatic cancer

Abstract

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is a growing global burden, remaining one of the most lethal cancers of the gastrointestinal tract. Moreover, PC is resistant to various treatments such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and immunotherapy. New therapies are urgently needed to improve the prognosis of PC. Oncolytic virus (OV) therapy is a promising new treatment option. OV is a genetically modified virus that selectively replicates in tumor cells. It can kill tumor cells without harming normal cells. The activation of tumor-specific T-cells is a unique feature of OV-mediated therapy. However, OV-mediated mono-therapeutic efficacy remains controversial, especially for metastatic or advanced patients who require systemically deliverable therapies. Hence, combination therapies will be critical to improve the therapeutic efficacy of OV-mediated therapy and prevent tumor recurrence. This review aims to investigate novel combinatorial treatments with OV therapy and explore the inner mechanism of those combined therapies, hopefully providing a new direction for a better prognosis of PC.

Nanoparticle-Based Therapeutic Strategies for Enhanced Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma Immunotherapy

“…ICI monoclonal antibodies, as single drugs or combination strategies, were studied in PDAC clinical trials [ 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 ]. Other immunotherapeutic modalities (e.g., cancer vaccines, ACT, and cytokine-mediated therapies) were also studied in pancreatic cancer clinical trials; however, their clinical application remains to be demonstrated [ 44 , 45 , 46 ]. This section summarizes the key clinical trial results for PDAC immunotherapy (especially ICI and ICI combined with chemotherapy/radiotherapy) and outlines the influence of the tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) on the efficacy of PDAC immunotherapy.…”