Efficacy and safety of PD‑1 inhibitor plus antiangiogenic treatment in patients with unresectable biliary tract cancer: A multicenter retrospective study

Immunotherapy and antiangiogenic therapy have shown promising clinical activity in patients with advanced biliary tract cancer (BTC) in clinical trials. As the combination of these two treatments for BTC is not well studied in the real world, the present study retrospectively analyzed the clinical outcomes of patients with unresectable BTC who received immunotherapy-antiangiogenesis combination therapy in a real-world setting. A three-center, retrospective study was performed on patients with unresectable BTC who received a combination of programmed death 1 inhibitor and antiangiogenic agent between March 26, 2019 and November 1, 2021 in China. In total, 68 patients were enrolled in the cohort. The objective response rate and disease control rate were 13.2 and 75.0%, respectively. The median time to progression, progression-free survival and overall survival were 8.2, 5.5 and 10.7 months, respectively. Adverse events of all grades occurred in 58 patients (85.3%). In conclusion, the present study demonstrated that immunotherapy-antiangiogenesis combination therapy may be considered a therapeutic option for patients with unresectable BTC. Further prospective investigations are needed.