Natural Killer Cell-Based Cancer Immunotherapy: A Review on 10 Years Completed Clinical Trials

Abstract

NK cell cancer immunotherapy is an emerging anti-tumour therapeutic strategy that explores NK cell stimulation. In this review, we address strategies developed to circumvent limitations to clinical application of NK cell-based therapies, and comprehensively review the design and results of clinical trials conducted in the past 10 years (2008–2018) to test their therapeutic potential. NK cell-based immunotherapy of solid cancers remains controversial, but merit further detailed investigation.

Keywords:

• Natural killer cells
• Adoptive cell therapy
• Clinical trials
• Immunotherapy
• Leukaemia

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr Cristina Pina, from Department of Haematology at University of Cambridge, for reading and editing the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors have no commercial, proprietary, or financial interest in the products or companies described in this article. The research was made possible by resources donated by Lui Che Woo Foundation Limited.

Additional information

Funding

The work was partially supported by grants from Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong SAR, PR China (Project No. 14119115, 14160917, 14120118, N_CityU102/15, T13-402/17-N); National Natural Science Foundation of China (81430049 and 81772322); Hong Kong Innovation Technology Commission Funds (ITS/UIM-305). This study was also supported in part by SMART program, Lui Che Woo Institute of Innovative Medicine. The work was also partially supported by grants from Science and Technology Project of Guangdong Province (2017B090904016). Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Council of China (Project No. JSGG20160229195900623, KJYY20170413095738765); Sanming Project of medicine in Shenzhen: (SZSM20150602).