Internal Medicine, Central Michigan University, Saginaw, Michigan, USA.
Department of Internal Medicine, CMU Medical Education Partners, Saginaw, Michigan, USA
J Investig Med. 2021 Mar;69(3):689-696. doi: 10.1136/jim-2020-001654. Epub 2020 Dec 22.
Immunotherapy is an extremely important breakthrough and an exciting new modality of treatment for a wide spectrum of cancers. It is focused around developing agents to stimulate or suppress the immune system, in a specific manner, to fight off a wide spectrum of diseases, particularly cancers. Traditional therapies available for the treatment of cancers include surgical intervention, chemotherapy, radiation therapy or a combination of these, which tend to be very non-specific. However, immunotherapy shows a stark difference from conventional therapy, in fact, that it has a high level of specificity for the tumor-specific antigens. The recent success of cancer immunotherapies in clinical trials is slowly revolutionizing the landscape for cancer therapy. The US Food and Drug Administration has approved numerous agents, after clinical trials showed promising results, for the treatment of multiple cancers. The role of immunotherapy in gastrointestinal cancers has also been very promising, particularly in patients with advanced metastatic disease or malignancies refractory to initial treatment. In this review of literature, we detail and discuss the immunotherapy agents approved for the treatment of GI cancers and glance at the future of immunotherapy for patients with these cancers.
免疫疗法是癌症治疗领域的一个重要突破，为广泛的癌症提供了一种令人兴奋的新治疗方式。它专注于开发以特定方式刺激或抑制免疫系统的药物，以抵御广泛的疾病，特别是癌症。传统的癌症治疗方法包括手术干预、化疗、放射治疗或这些方法的组合，这些方法往往是非特异性的。然而，免疫疗法与传统疗法有明显的区别，事实上，它对肿瘤特异性抗原具有很高的特异性。癌症免疫疗法在临床试验中的近期成功正在慢慢改变癌症治疗的格局。美国食品和药物管理局已经批准了许多药物，因为临床试验显示出了有希望的结果，用于治疗多种癌症。免疫疗法在胃肠道癌症中的作用也非常有前景，特别是在晚期转移性疾病或对初始治疗有抗药性的恶性肿瘤患者中。在这篇文献综述中，我们详细讨论了已批准用于治疗胃肠道癌症的免疫治疗药物，并展望了这些癌症患者免疫治疗的未来。
