title: Optimizing dendritic cell-based approaches for cancer immunotherapy.
abstract: Dendritic cells (DC) are professional antigen-presenting cells uniquely suited for cancer immunotherapy. They induce primary immune responses, potentiate the effector functions of previously primed T-lymphocytes, and orchestrate communication between innate and adaptive immunity. The remarkable diversity of cytokine activation regimens, DC maturation states, and antigen-loading strategies employed in current DC-based vaccine design reflect an evolving, but incomplete, understanding of optimal DC immunobiology. In the clinical realm, existing DC-based cancer immunotherapy efforts have yielded encouraging but inconsistent results. Despite recent U.S. Federal and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of DC-based sipuleucel-T for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, clinically effective DC immunotherapy as monotherapy for a majority of tumors remains a distant goal. Recent work has identified strategies that may allow for more potent "next-generation" DC vaccines. Additionally, multimodality approaches incorporating DC-based immunotherapy may improve clinical outcomes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
authors.forename: Jashodeep
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Datta
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ; Department of Surgery, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland.
authors.forename: Julia H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Terhune
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
authors.forename: Lea
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lowenfeld
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
authors.forename: Jessica A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Cintolo
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
authors.forename: Shuwen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
authors.forename: Robert E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Roses
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
authors.forename: Brian J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Czerniecki
mesh_terms: D019496:Cancer Vaccines / Q000276:immunology*; D003713:Dendritic Cells / Q000276:immunology*; D015195:Drug Design; D006801:Humans; D007167:Immunotherapy / Q000379:methods*; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D019496:Cancer Vaccines
keywords: cancer; chemotherapy; combination therapy; dendritic cell; immunotherapy; vaccine