Programmed death (PD)-1 and PD ligand (PD-L)1 play an increasingly important role in tumor therapy related researches for the past few years. It mainly functions through repressing the PD-1/PD-L1 signal pathway and relieving the inhibition of PD-1/PD-L1 signal pathway on T cells. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved several PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors in tumor therapy. In addition, compared with the single PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitor treatment, PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitor combined with chemotherapy, radiotherapy, targeted treatment, etc., have shown better clinical outcomes. In order to understand the application value of PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors in tumor treatment, this article intends to introduce the mechanism and clinical applications of PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors in solid tumor and hematologic malignancy therapy.
