Advances and challenges: dendritic cell vaccination strategies for glioblastoma

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Glioblastoma is the most common primary brain tumor in adults and prognosis remains poor with a median survival of approximately 15–17 months. This review provides an overview of recent advances in the field of glioblastoma immunotherapy.

Areas covered: Recent advances in dendritic cell vaccination immunotherapy are showing encouraging results in clinical trials and promise to extend patient survival. In this report we discuss current scientific knowledge regarding dendritic cell (DC) vaccines, including approaches to differentiating, priming, and injecting dendritic cells to achieve maximal anti-tumor efficacy in glioblastoma. These findings are compared to recently completed and currently ongoing glioblastoma clinical trials. Novel methods such as ‘fastDCs’ and vaccines targeting DCs in-vivo may offer more effective treatment when compared to traditional DC vaccines and have already entered the clinic.

Expert commentary: Finally, we discuss the challenges of T-cell dysfunctions caused by glioblastoma immunosuppression and how they affect dendritic cell vaccinations approaches.

KEYWORDS:

• Glioblastoma
• cancer vaccine
• dendritic cell
• immunotherapy
• clinical trials
• immunosuppression
• T-cell dysfunction
• fastDCs
• in-vivo DC vaccine
• recall antigens

Declaration of interest

JH Sampson has served as a consultant or in an advisory role for Celldex Therapeutics. Duke University has the potential to receive patent-related royalties. JH Sampson has an equity interest in Annias Therapeutics, which has optioned intellectual property from Duke related to the use of the pepCMV Vaccine in the treatment of glioblastoma multiforme. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

Additional information

Funding

JH Sampson’s research is funded by Celldex Therapeutics and also funding under the Duke University Faculty Plan from license fees paid to Duke University by Celldex Therapeutics.