Advances of Programmed Death-1/Programmed Death-1 Ligand Signal Pathway and its Blockers in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma is one of the most common malignancies of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma in southern China and is closely related to Epstein-Barr virus infection. Although the treatment efficacy of nasopharyngeal carcinoma has been made an obvious progress during the recent years, there are still some patients suffering from relapse or metastasis, which remains a difficult condition to manage. Recently, immunotherapy targeting programmed death-1/programmed death-1 ligand signal pathway has made a remarkable breakthrough in the treatment of many solid tumors including head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, which could be a new treatment after surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and targeted therapy. Even though lots of clinical trials targeting programmed death-1/programmed death-1 ligand signal pathway have been carried out, the value of anti-programmed death-1/programmed death-1 ligand immunotherapy in nasopharyngeal carcinoma is not yet clear. This review aims to summarize recent advances in the clinical research of programmed death-1/programmed death-1 ligand signal pathway and their blockers in nasopharyngeal carcinoma.