Title:Emerging Immunotargets in Bladder Cancer
VOLUME: 17 ISSUE: 7
Author(s):Francesco Massari, Chiara Ciccarese, Nuno Vau, Matteo Santoni, Rodolfo Montironi, Liang Cheng, Rita C. Marques, Marina Scarpelli, Jorge Fonseca, Marc R Matrana, Moch Holger, Stefano Cascinu, Giampaolo Tortora and Antonio Lopez-Beltran
Affiliation:Medical Oncology, Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria Integrata, University of Verona, Piazzale L.A. Scuro 10, 37124 Verona, Italy.
Keywords:Bladder cancer, clinical trials, immunotherapy, urothelial carcinoma.
Abstract:Bladder cancer treatment, namely systemic therapy, was dominated in the last three decades due to the absence
of newer therapeutic options other than chemotherapy regimens. Chemotherapy, by itself, both in first and second-line
seems to have achieved the modest plateau of its possibilities at the cost of non-negligible toxicity. Targeted therapies,
which changed the therapy of many different tumors, seem rather ineffective in bladder cancer. More recently, a new generation
of Immunotherapy based regimens represent the most promising avenue for the future systemic treatment of bladder
cancer. Checkpoint inhibition, namely PD1/PD-L1 pathway inhibition, showed impressive results in many other tumor
types and are expected to become a major player in the treatment of bladder cancer. Other immunotherapy strategies such
as fusion proteins represent distant, although promising, options. A brief overview of the current status of bladder cancer
immunotherapy is presented.
