Dendritic Cells for Immunotherapy of Metastatic Endometrial Cancer Patients

Prevention of infectious diseases through immunization is one of the greatest achievements of modern medicine. Nonetheless, considerable challenges remain for improving the efficacy of existing vaccines for therapeutic immunizations for diseases such as cancer. The investigators were amongst the first groups worldwide that introduced tumor antigen-loaded dendritic cell (DC)-based vaccines in the clinic1-3. Effective immune responses and favorable clinical outcomes have indeed been observed4-7. Thus far, mainly conventional in vitro generated monocyte-derived DCs (moDC) have been used in clinical trials worldwide. In the past 14 years the investigators have treated more than 375 patients and proven that DC therapy is feasible and non-toxic. The investigators observed that long lasting tumor specific T cell-mediated immunological responses are clearly linked to increased progression free survival as well as overall survival8. In conclusion, based on all these observations the investigators are convinced that pDC and myDC employ different, and probably more optimal mechanisms to combat cancer. In addition, based on in vitro data and preclinical studies that suggest that blood pDC and myDC act synergistically, the investigators hypothesize that the combination of myDC and pDC may induce stronger anti-tumor immune responses as compared to pDC or myDC alone, or moDC.