Data from Safety and Clinical Response to Combined Immunotherapy with Autologous iNKT Cells and PD-1<sup>+</sup>CD8<sup>+</sup> T Cells in Patients Failing First-line Chemotherapy in Stage IV Pancreatic Cancer

Abstract

<div>Purpose:<p>A phase I clinical trial was conducted to assess the safety and feasibility of invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cells combined with PD-1<sup>+</sup>CD8<sup>+</sup> T cells in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer and failing the first-line chemotherapy.</p>Patients and Methods:<p>Fifteen eligible patients were enrolled, of whom 9 received at least three cycles of treatment each. In total, 59 courses were administered.</p>Results:<p>Fever was the most common adverse event, peaking at about 2–4 hours after cell infusion and reverting within 24 hours without treatment in all patients. Influenza-like reactions such as headache, myalgia, and arthralgia were also observed in 4, 4, and 3 of the patients, respectively. In addition, vomiting and dizziness were prevalent, while abdominal pain, chest pain, rash, and stuffy nose were rare adverse events, each reported in 1 patient. Side effects above grade 2 were not observed. Two patients achieved partial regression, while 1 patient experienced disease progression assessed 4 weeks after the third course. Three patients are still alive at the time of writing and have progression-free survival longer than 12 months. The overall survival time has been extended to over 12 months in 6 of the 9 patients. No constant changes of CD4<sup>+</sup> T, B, and NK cells were recorded except for elevated CD8<sup>+</sup> T cells after the first course.</p>Conclusions:<p>The combination of autologous iNKT cells and PD-1<sup>+</sup>CD8<sup>+</sup> T cells was a safe therapeutic strategy against advanced pancreatic cancer. The patients exhibited a potentially promising prolonged survival time. Further study appears warranted to evaluate the efficacy of these combined cell infusions in pancreatic cancer.</p>Trial registration:<p>This trial was included in the clinical trial which was registered in ClinicalTrials.gov (ID:NCT03093688) on March 15, 2017.</p>Significance:<p>There is an unmet need for novel, more effective, and tolerable therapies for pancreatic cancer. Here we present a phase I clinical trial employing iNKT cells combined with PD-1<sup>+</sup>CD8<sup>+</sup> T cells in 9 patients with advanced pancreatic cancer and failing the first-line chemotherapy. The combined immunotherapy was shown to be feasible in the enrolled patients with limited side effects and optimistic clinical responses, which could bring opportunity of therapeutic advancement.</p></div>