Efficacy and Safety of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors on Advanced Cervical Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

This study aims to evaluate the efficacy and safety of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) in patients with histologically proven advanced cervical cancer. MEDLINE (through PubMed), Web of Science, Embase, and the Cochrane Library were comprehensively searched. Eligible studies were clinical trials investigating the efficacy and safety on ICIs in patients with confirmed advanced cervical cancer. Response rates and adverse events rates were pooled using either a random-effects model or a fixed-effects model based on the I 2 value. A total of 12 clinical trials with 523 women diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer were included. Programmed cell death-1 (PD-1)/programmed cell death ligand-1 (PD-L1), and cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4 (CTLA-4) inhibitors were identified. The pooled objective response (OR) rate, complete response (CR) rate, partial response (PR) rate, and stable disease (SD) rate of PD1 antibodies were 0.24 (95% CIs: 0.11–0.39; I 2 =90%, P <0.01), 0.03 (95% CIs: 0.02–0.05; I 2 =0%, P =0.92), 0.20 (95% CIs: 0.08–0.36; I 2 =91%, P <0.01), 0.31 (95% CIs: 0.23–0.40; I 2 =79%, P <0.01), respectively. Adverse events (AEs) rate of any grade was 0.81 (95% CIs: 0.72–0.88; I 2 =83%, P <0.01). This study indicates that PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors reveal acceptable clinical responses and tolerable adverse events in the treatment of advanced cervical cancer. Well-designed clinical trials investigating the efficacy and safety of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are needed.