Immune Checkpoint Therapy in Bladder Cancer

Introduction to Bladder Cancer

Bladder cancer occurs in the tissues of the bladder and most often begins in the urothelial cells that line the inside of your bladder. In general, there are three types of bladder cancer, which include transitional cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and adenocarcinoma. As one of the most aggressive neoplasms worldwide, the exact cause of bladder cancer is still unknown. Compared with non-muscle invasive bladder cancer, the patients with muscle-invasive disease present a worse prognosis because of the metastatic potential. Traditionally, the cisplatin-based combination is the initial choice for the treatment of metastatic urothelial carcinoma (mUC). However, almost all the patients with bladder cancer will ultimately progress and die.

Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors (ICIs) against Bladder Cancer

Immunotherapy has shown promising results in cancer treatment. Immune checkpoint inhibitors have been served as an increasingly used therapeutic option in bladder cancer. It has been reported that the high expression of programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) is associated with advanced and aggressive tumors with poor survival outcomes. Nowadays, a series of ICIs has been approved against bladder cancer. The reported objective response rate (ORR) of PD-L1 inhibitors reached 14.8% (CI 11.1-19.3). Compared with chemotherapy, the ORR for the antibody group was higher, and the Grade 3 or 4 adverse events were less. In conclusion, the major paradigm shift in bladder cancer medicine focuses on the combination of ICI with chemotherapy. Besides, the use of drug combinations of PD-L1/PD-1 antibody and CTLA-4 antibody seems to be particularly important in metastatic bladder cancer.

Fig.1 PD-L1 membranous immunostaining in high-grade urothelial carcinoma. (Lopez-Beltran, 2021)

Services at Creative Biolabs

Creative Biolabs is a leading service provider that focuses on immune checkpoint therapy against various cancers. Based on our extensive experience on the PD-L1 pathway, now we can provide a series of services for our clients all over the world, which include but not limited to:

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Reference

Lopez-Beltran, A.; et al. Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors for the Treatment of Bladder Cancer. Cancers. 2021, 13(1): 131.

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