Recent clinical trials of tumor immunotherapy

Abstract

Many recent clinical trials of immunotherapy for advanced tumors have reported remarkable results. For example, blockade of cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen 4 (CTLA-4) signicantly improved median overall survival of melanoma patients. Blockade of programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) or programmed cell death 1 ligand 1 (PD-L1) induced durable tumor regression and prolonged disease stabilization in patients with advanced cancers, including melanoma, non-small-cell lung cancer, and renal cell cancer. In addition, adoptive cell transfer of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and T cells transduced with high avidity T cell receptor (TCR) genes have been reported to elicit marked durable tumor regression in melanoma patients. Further, clinical trials of cancer vaccines targeting various tumors have been conducted to prolong overall survival. In this review, some remarkable results achieved in recent clinical trials are summarized. © 2013 The Japan Society for Clinical Immunology.