Short-term clinical efficacy of percutaneous irreversible electroporation combined with allogeneic natural killer cell for treating metastatic pancreatic cancer

•Irreversible electroporation (IRE) combined with allogenic NK cell immunotherapy for metastaic pancreatic cancer is firstly showed.•A potentially effective approach for the control of tumor growth in metastatic PC patients is proposed.•IRE combined with allogenic NK cell immunotherapy hava a synergistic effect.

This study was to determine how the short-term clinical efficacy of irreversible electroporation (IRE) combined with allogeneic natural killer (NK) cell therapy for treating metastatic pancreatic cancer. Between March and December 2016, we enrolled 40 patients who met the enrollment criteria and assigned them to two groups: simple IRE (IRE group, n = 20) and IRE plus allogeneic NK cell therapy (IRE-NK, n = 20). We evaluated immune function changes, quality of life, clinical response, and other related indicators. Combining allogeneic NK cells with IRE had a synergistic effect, not only enhancing the immune function of the patients, but also reducing the expression of carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) and CA242 and significantly exhibiting good short-term outcome and improving the quality of life of the patients. This is the first clinical trial to combine allogeneic NK cells with IRE for treating metastatic pancreatic cancer, and proves the safety and efficacy of the treatment.