Some aspects of immunotherapy in colon cancer

Abstract

Colon cancer is known to be resistant to immunotherapy; however, during the last few years, researchers managed to identify a subgroup of patients that response to anti-PD-1 therapy. This encouraged molecular biologists, immunologists, and clinical oncologists to reconsider the role of immunotherapy for colon cancer. A substantial number of studies devoted to this problem have been published so far, which allowed us to prepare a literature review. This review covers the main trends in immunotherapy of colon cancer, including prognostic value of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors, bispecific monoclonal antibodies, and antitumor vaccines, as well as transformation of non-inflammatory cancer phenotype into the inflammatory one.

Keywords

• immunotherapy
• colon cancer
• anti-pd-1 monoclonal antibodies
• nivolumab
• pembrolizumab
• microsatellite instability
• antitumor vaccines