Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors As a Neoadjuvant/Adjuvant Treatment of Muscle-Invasive Bladder Cancer: A Systematic Review

Overview

Journal Cancers (Basel)

Publisher MDPI

Specialty Oncology

Date 2022 May 28

PMID 35626149

Authors

Biagio Barone

Armando Calogero

Luca Scafuri

Matteo Ferro

Giuseppe Lucarelli

Erika Di Zazzo

Enrico Sicignano

Alfonso Falcone

Lorenzo Romano

Luigi De Luca

Francesco Oliva

Benito Fabio Mirto

Federico Capone

Ciro Imbimbo

Felice Crocetto

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Bladder cancer is the ninth most common cancer worldwide. Over 75% of non-muscle invasive cancer patients require conservative local treatment, while the remaining 25% of patients undergo radical cystectomy or radiotherapy. Immune checkpoint inhibitors represent a novel class of immunotherapy drugs that restore natural antitumoral immune activity via the blockage of inhibitory receptors and ligands expressed on antigen-presenting cells, T lymphocytes and tumour cells. The use of immune checkpoint inhibitors in bladder cancer has been expanded from the neoadjuvant setting, i.e., after radical cystectomy, to the adjuvant setting, i.e., before the operative time or chemotherapy, in order to improve the overall survival and to reduce the morbidity and mortality of both the disease and its treatment. However, some patients do not respond to checkpoint inhibitors. As result, the capability for identifying patients that are eligible for this immunotherapy represent one of the efforts of ongoing studies. The aim of this systematic review is to summarize the most recent evidence regarding the use of immune checkpoint inhibitors, in a neoadjuvant and adjuvant setting, in the treatment of muscle-invasive bladder cancer.

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