Immunotherapy in Gastrointestinal Malignancies

Gastrointestinal (GI) tumors present a high rate of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Currently used treatment modalities include surgical resection, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy, and offer modest or poor overall outcomes. The success of immunotherapy in the treatment of solid tumors such as melanoma and lung cancer in the last decade has galvanized the investigative immunotherapeutic approaches in patients with gastrointestinal malignancies. The GI tumors with high microsatellite instability (MSI) have particularly been responsive to the immunotherapeutic approaches prompting the use of precision medicine in reducing the tumor burden globally. Various combination strategies in clinical trials currently are aiming to study the effect of various targeted monoclonal antibody-based or immune checkpoint inhibitor-based approaches to improve the overall outcome in GI malignancies.