The use and development of retroviral vectors to deliver cytokine genes for cancer therapy.

In this review, we describe technical advancements of retroviral vectors to address issues of safety, titer, and clinical scale manufacturing to produce high-quality retroviral vector preparations that have made direct intratumoral administration of cytokine encoding recombinant vectors a feasible cancer therapy in the clinic. We also review possible further advances in retroviral vector design, which may prove important in expanding these clinical applications.