title: Clinical outcome of immunotherapy with dendritic cell vaccine and cytokine-induced killer cell therapy in hepatobiliary and pancreatic cancer.
abstract: The aim of this study was to determine the therapeutic effects of adoptive immunotherapy following dendritic cell (DC) vaccine and cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cell therapy and evaluate its cytotoxicity, survival benefits and quality of life (QOL) changes in patients with hepatobiliary and pancreatic cancer (HPC). We performed a retrospective analysis of 407 clinical cases, including 77 patients with HPC who received immunotherapy with DC vaccine and CIK cells (I group) and 330 patients with similar characteristics who underwent baseline treatment but did not receive immunotherapy [non-immunotherapy (NI) group)] as the control group. After a follow-up period of 294±207.5 days, the median survival time (MST) of the two groups was compared using the Kaplan-Meier method. In the I group, 61% of the patients developed a positive, delayed-type hypersensitivity response and 65% of the patients exhibited an improvement in QOL. The most notable adverse events included fever (28%), insomnia (25%), anorexia (17%), skin rash (12%) and arthralgia (31%). No severe toxicities were observed in patients in the I group; in addition, the MST was significantly longer in the I group compared with that in the NI group (P=0.014). Thus, the DC vaccine and CIK cell therapy was associated with mild adverse effects, but was able to induce an immune response and effectively eliminate tumor cells, thereby improving the QOL and prolonging the MST of the patients.
authors: School of Medicine, NanKai University, Tianjin 300071, P.R. China.
authors: Lihong
authors: L
authors: Zhang
authors: Graduate School of Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin 300070, P.R. China.
authors: Wei
authors: W
authors: Zhu
authors: Department of Oncology, Tianjin Union Medicine Centre, Tianjin 300121, P.R. China.
authors: Jiali
authors: J
authors: Li
authors: Department of Oncology, Tianjin Union Medicine Centre, Tianjin 300121, P.R. China.
authors: Xuejing
authors: X
authors: Yang
authors: Department of Oncology, Tianjin Union Medicine Centre, Tianjin 300121, P.R. China.
authors: Yanjie
authors: Y
authors: Ren
authors: Department of Oncology, Tianjin Union Medicine Centre, Tianjin 300121, P.R. China.
authors: Jingxiu
authors: J
authors: Niu
authors: Department of Oncology, Tianjin Union Medicine Centre, Tianjin 300121, P.R. China.
authors: Yan
authors: Y
authors: Pang
keywords: cytokine-induced killer cells; dendritic cell; hepatobiliary; pancreatic cancers