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Pancreatic cancer is a highly malignant tumor of the digestive tract. Given the lack of appropriate screening and diagnosis methods, the deep location of the pancreas, difficulty in a tissue biopsy, rapid tumor progression and low response rate to radiotherapy or chemotherapy, its morbidity is almost similar to the mortality. Approximately 80% of patients with pancreatic cancer have advanced disease at the time of diagnosis, and the average survival time is less than 1 year. The extremely aggressive nature of pancreatic cancer and the low survival rate make it a heavy global burden. With the advancement of many basic and clinical studies, new progress has been made in the pathogenesis of pancreatic cancer, diagnostic methods, preoperative treatment, radiotherapy techniques and systemic treatment of advanced diseases during the last year. These results further enrich the treatment options for patients with pancreatic cancer and improve the prognosis. The present review summarized the important findings in pancreatic cancer research in 2021.

CD73 plays a critical role in the pathogenesis and immune escape in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). AB680, an exceptionally potent and selective inhibitor of CD73, is administered in an early clinical trial, in conjunction with gemcitabine and anti‐PD‐1 therapy, for the treatment of PDAC. Nevertheless, the specific therapeutic efficacy and immunoregulation within the microenvironment of AB680 monotherapy in PDAC have yet to be fully elucidated. In this study, AB680 exhibits a significant effect in augmenting the infiltration of responsive CD8+ T cells and prolongs the survival in both subcutaneous and orthotopic murine PDAC models. In parallel, it also facilitates chemotaxis of myeloid‐derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) by tumor‐derived CXCL5 in an AMP‐dependent manner, which may potentially contribute to enhanced immunosuppression. The concurrent administration of AB680 and PD‐1 blockade, rather than gemcitabine, synergistically restrain tumor growth. Notably, gemcitabine weakened the efficacy of AB680, which is dependent on CD8+ T cells. Finally, the supplementation of a CXCR2 inhibitor is validated to further enhance the therapeutic efficacy when combined with AB680 plus PD‐1 inhibitor. These findings systematically demonstrate the efficacy and immunoregulatory mechanism of AB680, providing a novel, efficient, and promising immunotherapeutic combination strategy for PDAC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Condyloma acuminatum (CA) is both highly infectious and frequently recurring and requires long‐term, repeated treatments, which seriously affect the physical and psychological health of patients. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of a combination therapy of traditional Chinese medicine and CO2 laser on CA and the relationship between CA relapse and cellular immunity. Methods: The study cohort consisted of 160 CA patients who underwent ambulatory treatment between January 2017 and January 2019 in the Department of Dermatology and Venerology of our hospital. The 160 patients were randomly divided into two groups: a combination therapy group (80 cases), who underwent CO2‐laser treatment followed by three courses of oral traditional Chinese medicine and a control group (80 cases), who were only treated with the CO2 laser to remove warts. The efficacy of the CO2‐laser treatment was evaluated on the first month after treatment and relapse was evaluated at monthly follow‐ups for 6 months. Additionally, 20 normal volunteers were also recruited. Three months before and after treatment, the cellular immunity factors of peripheral blood T lymphocyte subsets, including CD4+, CD8+, CD4+/CD8+, and interleukin‐2 (IL‐2), were detected and compared between CA patients and normal volunteers, the combination therapy and control groups, and the relapse and cure groups to determine whether there were statistical differences. Results: Compared with normal volunteers, CA patients exhibited lower CD4+, CD4+/CD8+, and IL‐2 levels and higher CD8+ levels (P <.05). In addition, the rates of relapse for the combination therapy and control groups were 25.7% and 40.8%, respectively. However, the comprehensive immunity factors showed no statistical difference (P >.05) before treatment. Three months after treatment, factors including CD4+ and CD4+/CD8+ were higher in the combination therapy group than in the control group (P <.05), and CD8+ and IL‐2 showed no statistical difference (P >.05); factors including CD4+, CD4+/CD8+, and IL‐2 were higher and CD8+ was lower in the cure group than in the relapse group (P <.05). Conclusion: The therapy combination of traditional Chinese medicine and CO2‐laser treatment can reduce the relapse rate of CA. It might be that traditional Chinese medicine combined with CO2‐laser treatment regulate liver meridian, Qi and blood, and restore the balance between various subgroups. Highlights: The therapy combination of traditional Chinese medicine and CO2‐laser treatment can reduce the relapse rate of CA. It might be traditional Chinese medicine combined with CO2‐laser treatment regulate liver meridian, Qi and blood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pancreatectomy is associated with significant morbidity and unpredictable outcome, with few diagnostic tools to determine, which patients gain the most benefit from this treatment, especially before the operation. This study aimed to define a preoperative signature panel of serum markers to indicate response to pancreatectomy for pancreatic cancer. Over 1000 patients with pancreatic cancer treated at two independent high-volume institutions were included in this study and were divided into three groups, including resected, locally advanced and metastatic. Eight serum tumor markers most commonly used in gastrointestinal cancers were analyzed for patient outcome. Preoperative CA19-9 independently indicated surgical response in pancreatic cancer. Patients with CA19-9 ≥1000 U/mL generally had a poor surgical benefit. However, a subset of these patients still achieved a survival advantage when CA19-9 levels decreased postoperatively. CEA and CA125 in the presence of CA19-9 ≥1000 U/mL could independently predict the non-decrease of CA19-9 postoperatively. The combination of the three markers was useful for predicting a worse surgical outcome with a median survival of 5.1 months vs. 23.0 months ( p < 0.001) for the training cohort and 7.0 months vs. 18.2 months ( p < 0.001) for the validation cohort and also suggested a higher prevalence of early distant metastasis after surgery. Resected patients with this proposed signature showed no survival advantage over patients in the locally advanced group who did not receive pancreatectomy. Therefore, a preoperative serum signature of CEA+/CA125+/CA19-9 ≥1000 U/mL is associated with poor surgical outcome and can be used to select appropriate patients with pancreatic cancer for pancreatectomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CD73 plays a critical role in the pathogenesis and immune escape in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). AB680, an exceptionally potent and selective inhibitor of CD73, is administered in an early clinical trial, in conjunction with gemcitabine and anti-PD-1 therapy, for the treatment of PDAC. Nevertheless, the specific therapeutic efficacy and immunoregulation within the microenvironment of AB680 monotherapy in PDAC have yet to be fully elucidated. In this study, AB680 exhibits a significant effect in augmenting the infiltration of responsive CD8 + T cells and prolongs the survival in both subcutaneous and orthotopic murine PDAC models. In parallel, it also facilitates chemotaxis of myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) by tumor-derived CXCL5 in an AMP-dependent manner, which may potentially contribute to enhanced immunosuppression. The concurrent administration of AB680 and PD-1 blockade, rather than gemcitabine, synergistically restrain tumor growth. Notably, gemcitabine weakened the efficacy of AB680, which is dependent on CD8 + T cells. Finally, the supplementation of a CXCR2 inhibitor is validated to further enhance the therapeutic efficacy when combined with AB680 plus PD-1 inhibitor. These findings systematically demonstrate the efficacy and immunoregulatory mechanism of AB680, providing a novel, efficient, and promising immunotherapeutic combination strategy for PDAC., (© 2023 The Authors. Advanced Science published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.)