Clinical application of tumor immune checkpoint and chimeric antigen receptor T-cell: monotherapy and combination therapy

Outstanding progress in immune checkpoint therapy has been achieved with respect to tumor therapy, which brings unprecedented hope for patients with advanced cancer. So far, four immune checkpoint inhibitors have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to be used in the treatment of various tumors. Meanwhile, researchers has found that chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CART) therapy has significant anti-tumor effect on hematologic malignancies, which means that it is expected to be a potential choice for more patients with cancer. In this review, we focus on the latest advances in tumor immune checkpoint therapy and CAR-T therapy, and discuss the potential values of them used in combination in clinical application.