Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor-Based Strategies for Synergistic Cancer Therapy

Immune checkpoint blockade therapy (ICBT) targeting checkpoints, such as, cytotoxic T-lymphocyte associated protein-4 (CTLA-4), programmed death-1 (PD-1), or programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1), can yield durable immune response in various types of cancers and has gained constantly increasing research interests in recent years. However, the efficacy of ICBT alone is limited by low response rate and immune-related side effects. Emerging preclinical and clinical studies reveal that chemotherapy, radiotherapy, phototherapy, or other immunotherapies can reprogramm immunologically “cold” tumor microenvironment into a “hot” one, thus synergizing with ICBT. In this review, the working principle and current development of various immune checkpoint inhibitors are summarized, while the interactive mechanism and recent progress of ICBT-based synergistic therapies with other immunotherapy, chemotherapy, phototherapy, and radiotherapy in fundamental and clinical studies in the past 5 years are depicted and highlighted. Moreover, the potential issues in current studies of ICBT-based synergistic therapies and future perspectives are also discussed.