Dendritic cell-based immunotherapy - 1268510

zhengchenji18
Posts:26

Hi,
I have a question regarding "Dendritic cell-based immunotherapy".

The following is from Wikipedia.
"Dendritic cells can be stimulated to activate a cytotoxic response towards an antigen. Dendritic cells, a type of antigen presenting cell, are harvested from a patient. These cells are then either pulsed with an antigen or transfected with a viral vector. Upon transfusion back into the patient these activated cells present tumour antigen to effector lymphocytes (CD4+ T cells, CD8+ T cells, and B cells). This initiates a cytotoxic response to occur against cells expressing tumour antigens (against which the adaptive response has now been primed)".

It looks to me that the only approved therapy is "Sipuleucel-T (Provenge®)" for prostate cancer.

This type of therapy is widely used in China and seems to be used against all kinds of cancer including lung, liver etc.
Of course, this makes me extra suspicious. However, I have found that there is a lot of enthusiasm with
researching this type of immunotherapy. Not so much these day, where are PD-1 and PD-L1 based immunotherapy are more popular. Is there any reason why Dendritic cell-based immunotherapy is not viable any more?

Thank you so much,
Chen

Forums

catdander
Posts:

Vaccines didn't show as much efficacy in lung cancer patients as was hoped. PD-1 and PD-L1 however are showing quite a bit of promise in clinical trials and are getting a lot of attention from drug developers because of results clinical trials. Let's hope these new immunotherapies prove to be as helpful as it appears.

Janine

Dr West
Posts: 4735

There are other dendritic cell vaccines being tested, but they haven't been as promising as PD-1 and PD-L1 inhibitors.

There is no good evidence to support using dendritic cell vaccines extensively in China. I would be very suspicious that this use is not in any standard, evidence-based way. It is very far from a standard of care for the vast majority of cancers.

Good luck.

-Dr. West

jamespeters
Posts: 2

Correct me if I am wrong but according to one company most people don't respond to anti-PD1/PDL-1 because they don't have many tumor infiltrating lymphocytes. So surely the key is converting non-responders to responders?