Advances in immunotherapy in cervical cancer

Abstract

Cervical cancer represents a major public health problem, being the fourth most common cancer in incidence and mortality in women worldwide. Patients with recurrent, persistent, or metastatic disease unsuitable for curative therapeutic approaches have a dismal prognosis. Until recently, these patients were only candidates for cisplatin-based chemotherapy plus bevacizumab. However, the introduction of immune checkpoint inhibitors has revolutionized the treatment of this disease, achieving historical overall survival improvements in both the post-platinum and front-line settings. Interestingly, the clinical development of immunotherapy in cervical cancer is currently advancing to the locally advanced setting, although preliminary efficacy outcomes in this setting have been disappointing so far. Moreover, promising data are emerging from early-phase trials on novel immunotherapy approaches, such as human papillomavirus therapeutic vaccines and adoptive cell therapy. This review summarizes the main clinical trials carried out in the field of immunotherapy in the last several years.