Immunotherapy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma: Current status and prospects (Review)

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is an epithelial tumor located in the nasopharynx and is highly associated with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection. Although radiotherapy alone can cure similar to 90% of patients with early-stage disease, >70% of patients with NPC have locoregionally advanced or metastatic disease at the first diagnosis due to the insidious and aggressive nature of NPC. After comprehensive radiochemotherapy, 20-30% of patients with advanced NPC still fail treatment, mainly due to recurrence and/or metastasis (R/M). Conventional salvage treatments, such as radiotherapy, chemotherapy and surgery, are suboptimal and frequently accompanied by severe adverse effects and limited efficacy. In recent years, immunotherapy has emerged as a promising treatment modality for R/M NPC. An increasing number of clinical studies have investigated the safety and efficacy of immunotherapy for advanced NPC and have shown considerable progress. In the present review, the rationale for the use of immunotherapy to treat NPC was summarized and the current status, progress and challenges of NPC clinical research on different immunotherapeutic approaches were highlighted, including immune checkpoint inhibitors, vaccines, immunomodulators, adoptive cell transfer and EBV-specific monoclonal antibodies. The comprehensive overview of immunotherapy in NPC may provide insight for clinical practice and future investigation.