title: Immunotherapy against invasive fungal diseases in stem cell transplant recipients.
abstract: Despite the availability of new antifungal compounds, morbidity and mortality of invasive fungal disease in allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell recipients are still unacceptably high. Over the past decade, one could witness an exciting improvement of the understanding of the molecular pathogenesis and of the complexity of host antifungal immune responses. This, in turn, provides critical information to augment host immunity against fungal pathogens. Strategies for enhancing the immune system include the administration of effector and regulatory cells (e.g., granulocytes, antigen-specific T cells, dendritic cells) as well as the administration of recombinant cytokines, interferons and growth factors (e.g., interferon-γ, keratinocyte growth factor, granulocyte- and granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor). One has to recognize at the same time, however, that data of in vitro assays and animal models cannot necessarily be transferred into the clinical setting. In addition, meaningful clinical trials in allogeneic stem cell recipients suffering from invasive fungal disease require sufficiently large and homogenous cohorts of patients and can only be performed in international collaboration, but may ultimately improve the outcome of allogeneic transplant recipients with invasive fungal disease.
authors.affiliation: Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, Children's Hospital III, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Theodor-Stern-Kai 7, Frankfurt, Germany. Thomas.Lehrnbecher@kgu.de
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lehrnbecher
authors.forename: Lars
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Tramsen
authors.forename: Ulrike
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Koehl
authors.forename: Stanislaw
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.forename: Konrad
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bochennek
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Klingebiel
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D018380:Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation / Q000009:adverse effects*; D006801:Humans; D007155:Immunologic Factors / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000276:immunology; D007167:Immunotherapy / Q000379:methods*; D051379:Mice; D009181:Mycoses / Q000276:immunology* / Q000628:therapy*; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic
chemical_list: D007155:Immunologic Factors