Cellular immunotherapy for pediatric solid tumors

Substantial progress has been made in the treatment of pediatric solid tumors over the past 4 decades. However, children with metastatic and or recurrent disease continue to do poorly despite the aggressive multi-modality conventional therapies. The increasing understanding of the tumor biology and the interaction between the tumor and the immune system over the recent years have led to the development of novel immune-based therapies as alternative options for some of these high-risk malignancies. The safety and anti-tumor efficacy of various tumor vaccines and tumor-antigen specific immune cells are currently being investigated for various solid tumors. In early clinical trials, most of these cellular therapies have been well tolerated and have shown promising clinical responses. Although substantial work is being done in this field, the available knowledge for pediatric tumors remains limited. We review the contemporary early phase cell-based immunotherapy efforts for pediatric solid tumors and discuss the rationale and the challenges thereof.