The safety and efficacy of chemotherapy combined with immunotherapy for pancreatic cancer A meta-analysis

Background: Since the combination of chemotherapy and immunotherapy, such as new molecular targeted drugs or vaccines, is controversial in terms of survival advantages compared with chemotherapy therapy alone, we conducted a meta-analysis to compare the efficacy and safety of immunotherapy combined with chemotherapy and chemotherapy alone for advanced pancreatic cancer. Methods: We searched PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library from the establishment of the database to November 2020. We included some studies that reported pancreatic cancer patients receiving immunotherapy, and we excluded duplicate publications, research without full text, incomplete information or inability to conduct data extraction, animal experiments, reviews, and systematic reviews. Results: The risk ratio of the objective response rate and disease control rate was 1.10 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.88-1.38) and 1.17 (95% CI: 1.06-1.31), respectively, indicating that there was no significant difference between the objective response rate of combination therapy and chemotherapy alone, while the disease control rate of the combined treatment was higher than that of chemotherapy alone. The hazard ratio of overall survival and progression-free survival was 0.91 (95% CI: 0.82-1.01) and 0.87 (95% CI: 0.77-0.98), respectively, indicating that there was no significant difference between the overall survival of combination therapy and chemotherapy alone, while progression-free survival of the combined treatment was longer than that of chemotherapy alone. We also found that in addition to the combination treatment, the incidence of vomiting in pancreatic cancer was higher than that of chemotherapy alone, and the incidence of other complications was not significantly different from that of treatment alone. Conclusion: Chemotherapy combined with immunotherapy for pancreatic cancer not only improves treatment efficiency but also does not cause serious adverse reactions. This treatment strategy should be widely used clinically.