title: Prioritization schema for immunotherapy clinical trials in glioblastoma.
abstract: Emerging immunotherapeutic strategies for the treatment of glioblastoma (GBM) such as dendritic cell (DC) vaccines, heat shock proteins, peptide vaccines, and adoptive T-cell therapeutics, to name a few, have transitioned from the bench to clinical trials. With upcoming strategies and developing therapeutics, it is challenging to critically evaluate the practical, clinical potential of individual approaches and to advise patients on the most promising clinical trials.
  
  
  
  The authors propose a system to prioritize such therapies in an organized and data-driven fashion. This schema is based on four categories of factors: antigenic target robustness, immune-activation and -effector responses, preclinical vetting, and early evidence of clinical response. Each of these categories is subdivided to focus on the most salient elements for developing a successful immunotherapeutic approach for GBM, and a numerical score is generated.
  
  
  
  The Score Card reveals therapeutics that have the most robust data to support their use, provides a reference prioritization score, and can be applied in a reiterative fashion with emerging data.
  
  
  
  The authors hope that this schema will give physicians an evidence-based and rational framework to make the best referral decisions to better guide and serve this patient population.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center , Houston, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Tiffany R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Hodges
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center , Houston, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Sherise D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Ferguson
authors.affiliation: The Division of Pediatrics, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center , Houston, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Hillary G
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Caruso
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, the University of California at San Francisco , San Francisco, USA.
authors.forename: Gary
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kohanbash
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center , Houston, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Shouhao
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuro-Oncology, the University of California at Los Angeles , Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Timothy F
authors.initials: TF
authors.lastname: Cloughesy
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, the University of California at San Francisco , San Francisco, USA.
authors.forename: Mitchel S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Berger
authors.affiliation: Arizona State University , Scottsdale, AZ, USA.
authors.forename: George H
authors.initials: GH
authors.lastname: Poste
authors.affiliation: The University of Sydney , NSW 2006 , Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Mustafa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Khasraw
authors.affiliation: The National Foundation for Cancer Research, Bethesda, MD, USA, Asian Fund for Cancer Research , Hong Kong, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Sujuan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ba
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University , Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Henry Ford Health System , Detroit, MI, USA.
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mikkelson
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuro-Oncology, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center , Houston, TX, USA.
authors.forename: W K Alfred
authors.initials: WK
authors.lastname: Yung
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuro-Oncology, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center , Houston, TX, USA.
authors.forename: John F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: de Groot
authors.affiliation: Division of Neuro-Oncology, Weill Cornell Medical College , New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Howard
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Fine
authors.affiliation: Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School , Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Lewis C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Cantley
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology and Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center , New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Ingo K
authors.initials: IK
authors.lastname: Mellinghoff
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, University of Florida , Gainesville, FL, USA.
authors.forename: Duane A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Mitchell
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, the University of California at San Francisco , San Francisco, USA.
authors.forename: Hideho
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Okada
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center , Houston, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Amy B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Heimberger
keywords: Clinical trial; glioblastoma; immunotherapy; prioritization; score card