There are multiple TAAs common in pancreatic cancer that have been or are being targeted for immunotherapy. Ideally, treatment can incorporate vaccines for a few TAAs to account for patient tumor diversity. Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) is a particularly attractive TAA to incorporate into a vaccine as it is overexpressed in over 90% of pancreatic cancer. A clinical trial with 1 mg of the CEA vaccine CAP1-6D elicited robust CD8+ T cell responses in 7 out of 19 tested patients (Geynisman et al. 2013). Other potential targets for vaccines include KIF20-A (part of the kinesin family), KRAS, WT-1, and VEGF (Banerjee et al. 2018). I need to research each of these more to see which ones seem best to incorporate into our treatment plan. Activators of the STING protein, which induces pro-inflammatory responses through the INF-beta and NF-kappaB pathways, seems to contribute to the regression of tumors via T cell recruitment as well as enhance the responses of anti-CTLA4 and anti-PDL1 immunotherapies (Banerjee et al. 2018). More research is needed in this topic as well, but perhaps a cancer vaccine and a STING activator can be used in combination in hopes of creating an overall more effective immunotherapy.
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