The history, evolution, and clinical use of dendritic cell-based immunization strategies in the therapy of brain tumors.
Despite advancements in therapeutic regimens, the prognosis remains poor for patients with malignant gliomas. Specificity has been an elusive goal for current modalities, but immunotherapy has emerged as a potential means of designing more tumor-specific treatments. Dendritic cells (DC) are the specialized antigen presenting cells of the immune system and have served now as a platform for therapeutic immunizations against such cancers as lymphoma, multiple myeloma, melanoma, prostate cancer, renal cell carcinoma, non-small cell lung carcinoma, colon cancer, and even malignant gliomas. DC-based immunizations offer a number of advantages over traditional immunotherapeutic approaches to brain tumors, approaches that have proved promising despite concerns over central nervous system immune privilege and glioma-mediated immunosuppression. The future success of clinical trials will depend on the optimization and standardizing of procedures for DC generation, loading, and administration.
Fecci
Peter E
PE
Department of Pathology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA.
Mitchell
Duane A
DA
Archer
Gary E
GE
Morse
Michael A
MA
Lyerly
H Kim
HK
Bigner
Darell D
DD
Sampson
John H
JH
D000818:Animals; D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy*; D019496:Cancer Vaccines / Q000266:history; D003713:Dendritic Cells / Q000637:transplantation*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D007167:Immunotherapy / Q000266:history / Q000379:methods
D019496:Cancer Vaccines