Abstract: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a head and neck malignant tumor with high infection rate of EBV. The activation of programmed death protein-1 and its ligand (PD-1/PD-L1) pathway may be one of the mechanisms of immune escape from EBV-associated NPC. Compared with chemotherapy, immune checkpoint inhibitors have less adverse reactions. Survival benefit is longer and the advantages of the tolerance is better, but there is only a small number of patients will benefit from faults. At present, at least four kinds of inhibitors targeting the pathway of PD-1 single resistance in clinical trials have achieved good results, and it has been approved for the treatment of recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Recent completed and ongoing studies on the PD-1 inhibitor treatment strategy for NPC, the efficacy evaluation and safety studies were reviewed.

Key words: nasopharyngeal neoplasms, immunotherapy, programmed cell death 1 receptor, immune checkpoint inhibitor