Autologous dendritic cells for treatment of advanced cancer--an update.

Dendritic cells (DC) are commonly viewed as the professional antigen-presenting cell. They capture antigens, migrate to appropriate lymphoid organs and initiate an antigen-specific CD4 and CD8 T cell response. Much is known about DC physiology, and it is now possible to culture, maintain and expand DC from different human sources, including hematopoietic progenitors in bone marrow and peripheral blood. Combined with the detection of an increasing number of tumor-associated antigens and T cell-recognized peptide epitopes, this has led to a new enthusiasm in the field of tumor immunotherapy and to various clinical applications in phase I/II studies on the treatment of different malignancies. This chapter will review the latest developments and give a brief update of the results obtained in studies of advanced melanoma, as well as provide a short overview of published results for other tumors.