Overview Of Dendritic Cell Vaccines For Brain Tumors

Dc vaccine has been introduced as a new therapeutic strategy in cancer patients.

Overview of dendritic cell vaccines for brain tumors.

However this treatment fails to show clinical benefit in many patients. 4 clinical trials underway have demonstrated the successful application of dc vaccines to induce antitumor. Brain tumors are a diverse group of biologically and pathologically distinct intracranial neoplasms that include tumors of neuroepithelial tissue gliomas meningeal tumors and primary lymphomas of the central nervous system non gliomas see buckner et al 2007 for review. The vaccine is called dcvax l.

Dc based immunotherapy is safe and can promote antitumor immune responses and prolonged survival of cancer patients. It s made with tissue from each participant s brain tumor. This is combined with dendritic immune cells from the person s blood. Gliomas typically arise from two different cell types in the brain astrocytes or oligodendrocytes.

Of the various forms of immunotherapy dendritic cell dc based therapies are well situated to be used to induce antitumor immunity given the specialized ability of dcs to both prime and or boost innate and adaptive immune responses. This new vaccine approach focuses on dendritic cells which brody calls the generals of the immune system s army. Tumor cells however hijack the immune system causing t cell exhaustion and dc dysfunction. Dendritic cells dcs are powerful antigen presenting cells for the induction of antigen specific t cell response.

Additionally in the presence of a tumor there can be significant blood brain barrier breakdown as well as tumor infiltrating dendritic cells macrophages and b and t lymphocytes. Tumor induced t cell exhaustion may be reversed through immune checkpoint blockade icb.