title: Vaccine therapies for patients with glioblastoma.
abstract: Glioblastoma (GBM) is a high-grade glial tumor with an extremely aggressive clinical course and a median overall survival of only 14.6 months following maximum surgical resection and adjuvant chemoradiotherapy. A central feature of this disease is local and systemic immunosuppression, and defects in patient immune systems are closely associated with tumor progression. Immunotherapy has emerged as an important adjuvant in the therapeutic armamentarium of clinicians caring for patients with GBM. The fundamental aim of immunotherapy is to augment the host antitumor immune response. Active immunotherapy utilizes vaccines to stimulate adaptive immunity against tumor-associated antigens. A vast array of vaccine strategies have advanced from preclinical study to active clinical trials in patients with recurrent or newly diagnosed GBM, including those that employ peptides, heat shock proteins, autologous tumor cells, and dendritic cells. In this review, the rationale for glioma immunotherapy is outlined, and the prevailing forms of vaccine therapy are described.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurological Surgery, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, 676 N. St. Clair Street, Suite 2210, Chicago, IL, 60611-2911, USA.
authors.forename: Eli T
authors.initials: ET
authors.lastname: Sayegh
authors.forename: Taemin
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Oh
authors.forename: Shayan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fakurnejad
authors.forename: Orin
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Bloch
authors.forename: Andrew T
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Parsa
mesh_terms: D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000276:immunology / Q000628:therapy*; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D005909:Glioblastoma / Q000276:immunology / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D016233:Immunotherapy, Active / Q000379:methods*