Abstract:

Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is the major histological type of esophageal cancer, accounting for 90% worldwide. Despite extensive research and treatment, the prognosis is still poor. In recent years, monoclonal antibodies that inhibit programmed death-1 (PD-1) or programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) have achieved good efficacies in a variety of malignant tumors including esophageal cancer. However, only a small number of patients experience clinical benefits because of drug resistance. Therefore, in clinical practice, the biomarkers that can accurately predict the clinical efficacy should be identified for individualized immunotherapy. Tumor immunity, such as PD-L1 expression of tumor cells, tumor infiltrating lymphocytes, tumor associated macrophages, and myeloid derived tumor suppressor cells, warrants further investigation in ESCC because the tumor immune microenvironment may influence the patients' response to immune checkpoint inhibitors. This article reviews the recent research progress on tumor immune microenvironment and immune checkpoint inhibitors in ESCC.

Key words:

Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, Immune checkpoint inhibitors, Immune microenvironment, Tumor immunotherapy

摘要：

食管鳞状细胞癌（esophageal squamous cell carcinoma，ESCC）是食管癌的主要组织学类型，占全球病例的90%。尽管已经开展了广泛的研究和治疗，但其预后仍较差。近年来，抑制程序性死亡受体-1（programmed death-1，PD-1）或程序性死亡受体配体-1（programmed death ligand-1，PD-L1）的单抗在包含食管癌在内的多种恶性肿瘤中获得了较好的疗效。然而，由于耐药性，只有少数患者得到了临床获益。因此，在临床中，应明确能够精确预测的生物标志物，以便进行个体化免疫治疗。由于肿瘤免疫微环境可能会影响患者对免疫检查点抑制剂的反应，因此，肿瘤免疫（如肿瘤细胞的PD-L1表达、肿瘤浸润性淋巴细胞、肿瘤相关巨噬细胞和髓系来源的肿瘤抑制细胞）在ESCC中值得进一步研究。本文综述了近年来有关ESCC中肿瘤免疫微环境和免疫检查点抑制剂的研究进展。

关键词:

食管鳞状细胞癌, 免疫检查点抑制剂, 免疫微环境, 肿瘤免疫治疗