Abscopal effect of metastatic pancreatic cancer after local radiotherapy and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor therapy

The role of immunotherapy in combination with traditional treatment regime in improving the survival of cancer patients has attracted more and more attention. Especially the abscopal effect that describes the phenomenon of localized radiotherapy leading to regression of distant unirradiated tumors and the role of enhanced radiotherapy-induced immunogenic cell death and activation of immune system have become a focus of the studies. Granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) is known a powerful stimulator of the generation, migration and activation of antigen presenting cells such as dendritic cells (DC) and macrophages. Here we report a case of a 67-year-old refractory metastatic pancreatic cancer patient who obtained evident abscopal effect and survival benefit from concurrent localized radiotherapy and GM-CSF.