Abstract
The accumulation of basic researches and clinical studies related to cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cells has confirmed their safety and feasibility in treating malignant diseases. This review summarizes the available published literature related to the biological characteristics and clinical applications of CIK cells in recent years. A number of clinical trials with CIK cells have been implemented during the progressive phases of cancer, presenting potential widespread applications of CIK cells for the future. Furthermore, this review briefly compares clinical applications of CIK cells with those of other adoptive immunotherapeutic cells. However, at present, there are no uniform criteria or large-scale preparations of CIK cells. The overall clinical response is difficult to evaluate because of the use of autologous CIK cells. Based on these observations, several suggestions regarding uniform criteria and universal sources for CIK cell preparations and the use of CIK cells either combined with chemotherapy or alone as a primary strategy are briefly proposed in this review. Large-scale, controlled, grouped, and multi-center clinical trials on CIK cell-based immunotherapy should be conducted under strict supervision. These interventions might help to improve future clinical applications and increase the clinical curative effects of CIK cells for a broad range of malignancies in the future.
Highlights
Cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cells are a heterogeneous cell population that was first discovered in the 1990s and can be generated from lymphocytes co-cultured with an anti-CD3 antibody and many other cytokines in vitro [1]
We critically summarize current researches on the biological characteristics and recent clinical trials of CIK cells and briefly compare the clinical applications of CIK cells with those of other immunotherapeutic cells
We present concerns on CIK cellbased adoptive cellular immunotherapy (ACI) drawn from these clinical trials
Summary
Cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cells are a heterogeneous cell population that was first discovered in the 1990s and can be generated from lymphocytes co-cultured with an anti-CD3 antibody and many other cytokines in vitro [1]. An increasing number of animal studies have indicated that a regimen involving the adoptive infusion of CIK cells confers considerable antitumor effect without severe adverse events in animals with malignancies [25,32,33]. On the basis of animal studies, a large number of clinical trials have indicated that adverse events seldom occurred after the infusion of CIK cells; most of the adverse events were minor, including mild fever, chills, fatigue, and GVHD.
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