Immune checkpoint inhibitors for metastatic bladder cancer

• Published in: Cancer treatment reviews Vol. 64; pp. 11 - 20
• Main Authors: Massari, Francesco, Di Nunno, Vincenzo, Cubelli, Marta, Santoni, Matteo, Fiorentino, Michelangelo, Montironi, Rodolfo, Cheng, Liang, Lopez-Beltran, Anto, Battelli, Nicola, Ardizzoni, Andrea
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier Ltd 01.03.2018
• Subjects: Animals; Antibodies, Monoclonal - pharmacology; Atezolizumab; Avelumab; B7-H1 Antigen - antagonists & inhibitors; Combination therapy; Durvalumab; Humans; Immune-checkpoint inhibitors; Immunotherapy; Ipilimumab; Molecular Targeted Therapy; Nivolumab; Pembrolizumab; Urinary Bladder Neoplasms - drug therapy; Urinary Bladder Neoplasms - immunology; Urinary Bladder Neoplasms - metabolism; Urinary Bladder Neoplasms - secondary; Urothelial carcinoma; Pembrolizumab; Durvalumab; Nivolumab; Ipilimumab; Avelumab; Urothelial carcinoma; Combination therapy; Immune-checkpoint inhibitors; Atezolizumab
• ISSN: 0305-7372; 1532-1967; 1532-1967
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ctrv.2017.12.007

•Atezolizumab and Pembrolizumab showed in phase II (Atezolizumab and Pembrolizumab) and phase III (Pembrolizumab) trials to improve clinical outcome of patients progressed to platinum based therapy.•Atezolizumab failed to show OS benefit over chemotherapy in a phase III trial for patients progressed to platinum based therapy.•Immunotherapy improve clinical outcome of patients unfit to standard first line platinum therapy.•We describe the active or ongoing clinical trials involving Programmed Death Ligand 1 (PD-L1), Programmed Death receptor 1 (PD-1) and Cytotoxic-T Lymphocyte Antigen 4 (CTLA 4) inhibitors in urothelial carcinoma focusing our attention on the developing new immune-agents and combination strategies with immune-checkpoint inhibitors. Chemotherapy has represented the standard therapy for unresectable or metastatic urothelial carcinoma for more than 20 years. The growing knowledge of the interaction between tumour and immune system has led to the advent of new classes of drugs, the immune-checkpoints inhibitors, which are intended to change the current scenario. To date, immunotherapy is able to improve the overall responses and survival. Moreover, thanks to its safety profile immune-checkpoint inhibitors could be proposed also to patients unfit for standard chemotherapy. No doubts that these agents have started a revolution expected for years, but despite this encouraging results it appears clear that not all subjects respond to these agents and requiring the development of reliable predictive response factors able to isolate patients who can more benefit from these treatments as well as new strategies aimed to improve immunotherapy clinical outcome. In this review we describe the active or ongoing clinical trials involving Programmed Death Ligand 1 (PD-L1), Programmed Death receptor 1 (PD-1) and Cytotoxic-T Lymphocyte Antigen 4 (CTLA 4) inhibitors in urothelial carcinoma focusing our attention on the developing new immune-agents and combination strategies with immune-checkpoint inhibitors.