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Preparation of Tumor Antigen-loaded Mature Dendritic Cells for Immunotherapy
Published on: August 1, 2013
Calcitonin-specific antitumor immunity in medullary thyroid carcinoma following dendritic cell vaccination
Matthias Schott1, Joachim Feldkamp, Melanie Klucken
1Department of Endocrinology, Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf, Moorenstrasse 5, 40225 Dusseldorf, Germany. schottmt@uni-duesseldorf.de
Abstract:
In this study, we investigated the immune response following immunotherapy with calcitonin-pulsed dendritic cells (DC) in 7 patients with metastasized medullary thyroid carcinoma. After immunization with 1-5 x 10(6) autologous DC, significant calcitonin-specific T cell proliferation was detectable in 3 patients. Measurement of cytokine release from T lymphocytes demonstrated high post-treatment interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) secretion after stimulation with calcitonin in 5 patients, one of whom experienced significant tumor regression. In contrast, antigen-specific interleukin-4 (IL-4) production was only slightly increased in 4 patients. All 7 patients developed a strong delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) skin reaction, which was confirmed to be mediated by infiltrating CD4+ T-helper cells and CD8+ cytotoxic T cells in all 3 patients who underwent skin biopsy. This is the first study to show that a polypeptide hormone can be used to develop a DC vaccination strategy for the immunotherapy of highly malignant endocrine cancers.
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