Adoptive Immunotherapy

Definition

Adoptive immunotherapy is the transfer of either donor or recipient immune system cells that may have been cultured ex vivo for therapeutic benefit. Cell populations that have been adoptively transferred in clinical studies include donor leukocyte infusions after allogeneic bone marrow transplant, lymphokine activated killer (LAK) cells, tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and antigen specific cytotoxic T cells (CTLs). The two main applications of this approach have been in patients with cancer and viral infections.

Characteristics

Unmanipulated T cells from an allogeneic donor

When allogeneic hemopoietic bone marrow transplantation is undertaken for malignant disease, cure is achieved not only by the high dose chemotherapy and radiotherapy administered as conditioning but also by the graft-versus-leukemia(GVL) effect. The presence of GVL was originally suggested by the higher relapse rates in recipients of syngeneic or T cell depleted transplants and lower relapse rates...