Antibody-drug conjugates specifically regulate tumor microenvironment: A promising strategy for pancreatic cancer treatment.

Pancreatic cancer, mainly pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), is aggressive with poor prognosis. Because its clinical manifestations appear at advanced stages, only less than 20% of patients with PDAC can undergo radical surgery. Chemotherapy, with strong toxic side effects, remains the main therapy. Therefore, developing more effective strategies for PDAC is warranted. Because of its heterogeneity and highly immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME), the discovery of new drug targets and development of new therapeutic modalities for PDAC remain difficult. Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs)-which have demonstrated efficacy against various types of cancers-improve the antitumor effects of a drug by enhancing tumor targeting, reducing toxic side effects, and increasing TME interactions via antigen presentation regulation and immunosuppressive cell inhibition. Here, we summarized the effects of ADCs on TME of PDAC, as well as the future research prospects.