Rational combination of cancer therapies with PD1 axis blockade

Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) of the PD1–PDL1 interaction to promote anti-tumour immunity shows remarkable clinical benefit in some patients with cancer but the efficacy of single-agent therapy is limited by mechanisms within the tumour microenvironment that curtail effective immune responses. This poster from Nature Reviews Cancer and Nature Reviews Immunology illustrates approaches in four main categories — targeting effector T cells, innate immune and regulatory cells, the tumour microenvironment and stromal cells, and cancer cells — that could be combined with PD1 axis blockade to provide cooperative or synergistic clinical benefit. Given the large number of potential treatment combinations, it is crucial that therapies should be combined in a rational manner based on our mechanistic understanding of cancer–immune interactions.

This poster is freely available online thanks to support from STEMCELL Technologies.

The poster has been peer reviewed and, as always, Springer Nature retains sole responsibility for all editorial content.

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Thommen, D.S., Peeper, D.S. Rational combination of cancer therapies with PD1 axis blockade. Nat Rev Cancer (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41568-024-00727-1

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• Published: 30 July 2024

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41568-024-00727-1