Comparing immunotherapies to other frequently used treatments of gastric cancer.
Expert Rev Clin Pharmacol
; 14(10): 1221-1232, 2021 Oct.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-34114518
ABSTRACT
Introduction:
Although standard doublet chemotherapy represents the upfront gold standard to increase survival and improve quality of life of gastric cancer patients, overall improvements in long-term outcomes are modest and novel treatments are urgently needed. Among these, immunotherapy is an increasingly attractive option.Areas covered A number of clinical trials have shown that checkpoint inhibitors may be of value, but many unclear issues remain controversial and should be promptly untangled. In our short review, we offer the current available data regarding immunotherapies in gastric cancers, discuss potential limits of the reported trials, compare outcomes of checkpoints inhibitor to those of standard chemotherapy or other novel treatments, and present basic principles of immune surveillance and immune escape that may be embraced in the near future with novel drug combinations.Expert opinion Gastric cancer patients may benefit from immunotherapy, both given alone in advanced lines and upfront in combination with chemotherapy. We believe that appropriate patients' and tumor's selection are crucial issues to maximize its potential efficacy. In addition, we think that assay standardization, biomarker agreement, and translational studies will improve the benefit-to-risk ratio of these agents in the clinical practice.Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Stomach Neoplasms
/
Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols
/
Immunotherapy
Type of study:
Prognostic_studies
Aspects:
Patient_preference
Limits:
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
Expert Rev Clin Pharmacol
Year:
2021
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Italy