May 24, 2023 – Claudin-18.2 Emerges as a Novel Therapeutic Target in GI Malignancies
CLAUDIN-18 Splice Variant 2
(claudin-18.2; CLDN18.2) has become a promising target for the treatment of patients with digestive malignancies, such as gastric cancer (GC), gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancer, esophageal cancer, and pancreatic cancer, because of its limited expression in healthy tissues and abnormal overexpression in a range of malignancies.1 Multiple clinical trials of CLDN18.2-targeted therapies, including monoclonal antibodies, bispecific antibodies, antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies, are ongoing, with some showing promising early results.1 If these findings hold up in larger trials, standardizing methods of CLDN18.2 detection and positivity thresholds, optimizing novel therapies’ efficacy and safety profiles, and finding rational therapeutic combinations with existing agents will be help to integrate CLDN18.2-targeted therapies into clinical practice.1