Abstract
Soft-tissue sarcoma (sts) is a rare mesenchymal malignancy that accounts for less than 1% of all adult tumours. Despite the successful advancement of localized therapies such as surgery and radiotherapy, these tumours can, for many, recur-often with metastatic disease. In the advanced setting, the role of systemic therapies is modest and is associated with poor survival. With the discovery of immunotherapies in other tumour types such as melanoma and lung cancer, interest has been renewed in exploring immunotherapy in sts. The biology of some stss makes them ripe for immunotherapy intervention; for example, some stss might have chromosomal translocations resulting in pathognomonic fusion products that have been shown to express cancer/testis antigens. Here, we present a targeted review of the published data and ongoing clinical trials for immunotherapies in patients with sarcoma, which comprise immune checkpoint inhibitors, adoptive cell therapies, and cancer vaccines.
Highlights
Soft-tissue sarcoma represents a heterogeneous group of malignancies, encompassing more than 60 distinct diagnoses
One of the most successful examples of systemic therapy in sts has been the use of imatinib mesylate in gastrointestinal stromal tumours
D’Angelo et al.[11] conducted an immunohistochemistry survey of 50 samples from patients with sts. Those authors evaluated the presence of tils, tumour-associated macrophages, and PD-1 or PD-L1
Summary
Soft-tissue sarcoma (sts) represents a heterogeneous group of malignancies, encompassing more than 60 distinct diagnoses. One of the most successful examples of systemic therapy in sts has been the use of imatinib mesylate in gastrointestinal stromal tumours. Those tumours contain an activating KIT mutation in approximately 80% of cases[2,3,4]. Imatinib mesylate inhibits both kit and platelet-derived growth factor receptor α, resulting in partial responses or stable disease for more than 85% of patients treated for advanced disease and dramatically improving the overall survival landscape in that disease[5,6]. We detail evidence for the various immunotherapy strategies in sts, with a focus on icis, vaccine trials, and adoptive cell therapies
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