Open AccessPembrolizumab for the treatment of advanced esophageal cancer
Author(s) -
Kunyu Harada,
Shun Yamamoto,
Ken Kato
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
future oncology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.857
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1744-8301
pISSN - 1479-6694
DOI - 10.2217/fon-2022-0108
Subject(s) - pembrolizumab , medicine , oncology , chemotherapy , immunotherapy , esophageal cancer , cancer , biomarker , biochemistry , chemistry
The prognosis of patients with advanced esophageal cancer (EC) remains poor and there are limited effective therapeutic agents for EC. Pembrolizumab monotherapy exerts clinically meaningful benefits for advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients with a combined positive score of ≥10. Additionally, pembrolizumab plus doublet chemotherapy results in a significant survival benefit for patients with advanced EC as first-line treatment compared with chemotherapy alone. We provide an overview of immune checkpoint inhibitors and present important clinical data related to treatment for EC patients. In our opinion, pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy should be the standard first-line treatment for patients with advanced EC, regardless of histology and combined positive score. Biomarker studies to identify patient populations in which immune checkpoint inhibitors are expected to show efficacy are needed.