Hematopoietic cell transplantation and cellular therapeutics in the treatment of childhood malignancies.

Hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) represents the most common and effective form of immunotherapy for childhood malignancies. The role of the graft-versus-leukemia effect in allogeneic HCT has been well established in childhood malignancies, but is also associated with short-term and long-term morbidity. HCT may be ineffective in some settings at obtaining control of the malignancy, and as such, cannot be used as a universal cancer immunotherapy. Novel therapies using dendritic cell vaccinations, tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, and chimeric antigen receptor T cells are being evaluated as potential adjuvants to HCT.