Possible alternatives to antimicrobial therapies

The care of immunosuppressed patients has constantly improved over the years, and pharmacologic developments contributed significantly to this success. However, despite these advances, current anti-infectious agents are limited in their efficacy by either weak specificity or side effects, including suppression of bone marrow function. Control of infection will ultimately depend on reconstitution of specific immunity. Thus, adoptive cellular immunotherapy represents an attractive, low-toxicity strategy to restore specific immune surveillance, and prevent/treat potentially life-threatening disease due to pathogens relevant to the immunosuppressed host. Evidence derived from trials conducted in recipients of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation indicate that adoptive transfer of antigen-specific T cells is a feasible and safe strategy to restore protective immunity and prevent or reverse virus-associated disease. Despite the great potential, immunotherapy for viral and fungal disease still has a marginal role in the management of immunosuppressed patients. This is due to limitations inherent to the technologies and products employed, and, more importantly, to the financial and structural requirements that are associated with GMP production. However, cell therapy offers a unique opportunity to restore antipathogen immune surveillance, and it is therefore conceivable that application of this strategy will increase in the next few years.