Clinical Efficacy of Dendritic Cells and Cytokine-induced Killer Cells Combined with Chemotherapy for Treating Newly diagnosed Multiple Myeloma and their Effect on Function of CD4(+) CD25(+) T Cells in Peripheral Blood

Abstract

To investigate the efficacy of dendritic cells and cytokine-induced killer cells (DC-CIK) combined with chemotherapy for treating newly diagnosed patients with multiple myeloma (MM) and their effect on cellular immune functions of CD4(+) CD25(+) Treg cells in peripheral blood after adoptive immunotherapy. Fouty two patients with MM were randomly divided into two groups: chemotherapy group and combined therapy group; 20 patients in chemotherapy group were treated by chemotherapy only, 22 patients in combined therapy group were treated by adoptive immunotherapy (DC-CIK) combined with chemotherapy, and the clinical outcomes of patients and the levels of CD4(+) CD25(+) Treg cells in peripheral blood between 2 groups were compared. After treating for 3 weeks, the quality of life, clinical index and survival of patients in combined therapy group were better than those of patients in chemotherapy group (P < 0.05); the ratios of CD4(+) CD25(+)/CD4(+) and CD4(+) CD25(+) FoxP3(+)/CD4(+) CD25(+) of patients in combined therapy group were obviously lower than those of patients in chemotherapy group (P < 0.05). The immunotherapy of DC-CIK can strengthen the activities of CD4(+) CD25(+) Treg cells, which combined with chemotherapy can be an effective and promising effects for treatment of patients with MM.