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Science 25 October 2002:
Vol. 298. no. 5594, p. 699
DOI: 10.1126/science.298.5594.699q
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This Week in Science
Antitumor immunity can be elicited either by stimulating T lymphocytes in vivo by "vaccination" with tumor antigens, or by transferring tumor-specific T cells to patients. Limitations in generating favorable antitumor responses have been encountered in both settings, either because of a failure to overcome prevailing immune tolerance to the tumor antigens, or because of poor engraftment of adoptively transferred lymphocytes. Dudley et al. (p. 850; see the 20 September news story by Couzin) have now combined nonmyeloablative conditioning with the transfer of expanded autologous tumor-reactive T cells, to treat patients with metastatic melanoma that had proven otherwise poorly responsive to conventional treatment regimes. Several recipients displayed clinical signs of antitumor response and two showed highly significant cancer regression, which correlated with the persistence of lymphocytes with strong tumor reactivity. Although some caution must be exercised in the use of autologous tumor-reactive T cells because of the possibility of associated autoimmune pathologies, these results represent an encouraging development in the use of immunotherapy as a treatment for certain types of cancer.
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)
