Advances in tumor microenvironment and immunotherapy targets for pancreatic cancer / 中华肝胆外科杂志

ABSTRACT

With the increasing incidence of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) in patients, it is estimated to be the second leading cause of cancer-related mortality in China. Despite the survival rate of PDAC patients is still poor. PDAC is characterized by the high complexity of stomal tissue, which includes immune cells, various growth factors, extracellular matrix and fibroblasts. TME accounts for about 15%-85% of the whole tumor component in PDAC. Emerging evidences have suggested that TME might play important roles in the tumor progress and drug-resistance of chemotherapy and a plenty of promising TME-related target molecules have been under early clinical trials. Nevertheless, there still lacks effective therapeutic treatments for improving the overall survival of PDAC patients. At present, progress has been made in the research of targeted therapies combined with matrix depletion, drug delivery and immunoregulation in PDACs. Thus, this review will focus on the latest progress in the fields of TME components including immune cells, growth factors, extracellular matrix and fibroblasts, as well as the therapeutic targets produced by these TME components.