Checkpoint inhibitors have significantly altered the treatment landscape of many solid malignancies over recent years, and now promises to be the new forefront of individualized oncology medicine. In particular, a proportion of patients that achieve a response to immunotherapy have demonstrated exceptional, and sometimes even durable complete responses to therapy.
Their role in gastrointestinal malignancies is a current area of active interest and development. Genomes of cancers with deficient mismatch repair (dMMR) contain exceptionally high numbers of somatic mutations, and are therefore more sensitive to immunotherapy. In recent years, checkpoint inhibitors have demonstrated promise in advanced dMMR gastrointestinal tumours of both colorectal and non-colorectal origin.
Here, we provide an overview of immunotherapy in dMMR tumours of gastrointestinal origin.