Clinical and Immunologic Evaluation of Dendritic Cell-Based Immunotherapy in Combination With Gemcitabine and/or S-1 in Patients With Advanced Pancreatic Carcinoma
Pancreas, 02/22/2012
Clinical Article
Kimura Y et al. – Dendritic cell vaccine–based immunotherapy combined with chemotherapy was shown to be safe and possibly effective in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer refractory to standard treatment.
Methods- Dendritic cell–based immunotherapy (DC vaccine alone or DC vaccine plus lymphokine-activated killer [LAK] cell therapy) in combination with gemcitabine and/or S-1 has been carried out in 49 patients with inoperable pancreatic carcinoma refractory to standard treatment.
- Of 49 patients, 2 patients had complete remission, 5 had partial remission, and 10 had stable disease.
- Prolongation of survival in this cohort was highly likely (median survival, 360 days).
- Survival of patients receiving DC vaccine and chemotherapy plus LAK cell therapy was longer than those receiving DC vaccine in combination with chemotherapy but no LAK cells.
- Increased numbers of cancer antigen-specific cytotoxic T cells and decreased regulatory T cells were observed in several patients on immunotherapy, but increased overall survival time tended to be associated only with the latter.
- None of the patients experienced grade 3 or worse adverse events during the treatment period.
