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Progress of immunotherapies in gestational trophoblastic neoplasms

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Abstract

Background

Different from other malignant gynecologic tumors, gestational trophoblastic neoplasms (GTNs) exhibit an exceptionally high cure rate primarily through chemotherapeutic interventions. However, there exists a small subset of refractory GTNs that do not respond to conventional chemotherapies. In such cases, the emergence of immunotherapies has demonstrated significant benefits in managing various challenging GTNs.

Purpose

This article aims to provide a comprehensive and systematic review of the immune microenvironment and immunotherapeutic approaches for GTNs. The purpose is to identify potential biomarkers that could enhance disease management and summarize the available immunotherapies for ease of reference.

Methods

We reviewed the relevant literatures toward immunotherapies of GTNs from PubMed.

Conclusion

Current immunotherapeutic strategies for GTNs mainly revolve around immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) targeting programmed death receptor 1 (PD-1) and programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1). Prominent examples include avelumab, pembrolizumab, and camrelizumab. However, existing researches into the underlying mechanisms are still limited.

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Data availability

Data sharing is not applicable—the article is a review of published research findings.

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The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support was received during the preparation of this manuscript.

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Author notes

  1. Tong Wang and Wenxiu Guo have contributed equally to this work as co-first authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Qilu Hospital, Shandong University, 107 Wenhua Xi Road, Jinan, 250012, Shandong, People’s Republic of China

    Tong Wang, Xiaochen Ren, Ying Ma, Chunping Qiu & Jie Jiang

  2. Department of Radiology, Shandong Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong First Medical University, Jinan, Shandong, People’s Republic of China

    Wenxiu Guo

  3. Maternal and Child Health Hospital of Shandong Province, Jinan, Shandong, People’s Republic of China

    Fangfang Lang

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  1. Tong Wang
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  2. Wenxiu Guo
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  3. Xiaochen Ren
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  4. Fangfang Lang
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  5. Ying Ma
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Contributions

CQ: Project development and manuscript editing. FL: Data collection. JJ: Project development and manuscript editing. TW: Data collection, manuscript writing and picture drawing. WG: Data collection, project development and manuscript editing. XR: Data collection. YM: Data analysis. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Chunping Qiu or Jie Jiang.

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Wang, T., Guo, W., Ren, X. et al. Progress of immunotherapies in gestational trophoblastic neoplasms. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 149, 15275–15285 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-023-05010-8

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