Combination treatment of advanced pancreatic cancer using novel vaccine and traditional therapies

Introduction: Pancreatic cancer is a highly malignant disease with high treatment resistance. Many patients are diagnosed in a very advanced state, and few patients can be curatively resected. With FOLFIRINOX and nab-paclitaxel plus gemcitabine, the prognosis of advanced pancreatic cancer has improved, yet many patients cannot survive longer than a year. Therefore, new therapeutic approaches are needed. Cancer vaccine therapy is characterized by controlling cancer by a cancer-specific immune reaction with few adverse events. Thus, a cancer peptide vaccine is considered promising for pancreatic cancer patients, who are often in poor general condition at diagnosis.

Areas covered: This article reviews available data from recent clinical trials of the novel cancer vaccine therapy in combination with traditional chemotherapy or radiotherapy for pancreatic cancer, and the prospect will be described.

Expert commentary: In clinical trials of the novel cancer vaccine therapy in combination with traditional therapy, many studies have failed to outperform traditional therapy, although some effects were recognized in subgroups. What is necessary in the future for cancer vaccine therapy to improve the prognosis of pancreatic cancer is combination of immune-checkpoint blockade to release immune escape mechanism and combination with strong multi-drug combination chemotherapy.