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Current status of vaccine immunotherapy for gastrointestinal cancers

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Abstract

Recent advances in tumor immunology and molecular drug development have ushered in a new era of cancer immunotherapy. Immunotherapy has shown promising results for several types of tumors, such as advanced melanoma, non-small cell lung cancer, renal cell carcinoma, bladder cancers, and refractory Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Similarly, efforts have been made to develop immunotherapies such as adoptive T-cell transplantation, peptide vaccines, and dendritic cell vaccines, specifically for gastrointestinal tumors. However, before the advent of immune checkpoint inhibitors, immunotherapy did not work as well as expected. In this article, we review immunotherapy, focusing on cancer vaccines for gastrointestinal tumors, which generally target eliciting tumor-specific CD8 + cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs). We also review various vaccine therapies and describe the relationship between vaccines and adjuvants. Finally, we discuss prospects for the combination of immunotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors.

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  1. Department of Gastroenterological, Breast, and Endocrine Surgery, Yamaguchi University Graduate School of Medicine, 1-1-1 Minami-Kogushi, Ube, Yamaguchi, 755-8505, Japan

    Nobuaki Suzuki, Yoshitaro Shindo, Masao Nakajima, Ryouichi Tsunedomi & Hiroaki Nagano

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  1. Nobuaki Suzuki
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Correspondence to Hiroaki Nagano.

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Suzuki, N., Shindo, Y., Nakajima, M. et al. Current status of vaccine immunotherapy for gastrointestinal cancers. Surg Today (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00595-023-02773-y

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