To date, great progress has been made in studying the immunology of
cancer and the development of
immunotherapies.
Immunotherapy has become an effective clinical strategy for
cancer treatment in courtesy of its unique features. It has been demonstrated to delay
tumor progression, reduce
tumor recurrence and
metastasis, and even cure
tumors through enhancing the immune response, stimulating
tumor-specific immunity and breaking immune tolerance. Several different immunotherapeutic approaches and methods are in the process of being developed, including the use of
cytokines,
immune checkpoint inhibitors, engineered T cells (such as
T-cell-receptor T cells and
chimeric antigen receptor T cells) and
cancer vaccines.
Digestive system neoplasms pose a serious threat to human health, including
esophageal cancer,
gastric cancer and
colorectal cancer, and
immunotherapy is considered to be a promising new avenue for the treatment of
digestive system neoplasms. However, certain challenges remain in terms of the broad implementation of
immunotherapies due to the incompletely understood mechanisms underlying
tumorigenesis. Therefore, it is crucially important to understand both the various different types of
immunotherapy and the immune landscapes in
digestive system neoplasms in order to reduce the side effects associated with these
therapies. The present review discusses existing and newly emerging immunotherapeutic methods that may be applied in the treatment of
digestive system neoplasms and how their clinical efficacy may be enhanced.