Vascular endothelia growth factor targeted therapy may improve the effect of dendritic cell-based cancer immune therapy

Abstract

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most com-mon and most lethal subtype of glioma and, despite advances, therapy prognosis re-mains poor with a median survival of ~15 months and a 2-year survival rate of 26% [1]. Standard therapy consists of tumor re-section, radiation and chemotherapy and a majority of patients receive antiangioge-netic therapy with the humanized anti-vas -cular endothelial growth factor monoclonal antibody bevacizumab as second-line ther-apy. In a randomized Phase II clinical trial we use an individualized cancer immune therapy concept based on dendritic cells (DC-CIT) as add on to first-line therapy [2]. Our cancer vaccine AV0113 is comprised of two main components: Type 1 dendritic cells, that are characterized by the secretion of the immune regulatory molecule IL-12 to polarize the immune system towards a cy-tolytic immune response, are derived from the patient’s monocytes and are pulsed with tumor antigens, that are extracted from the patient’s autologous tumor tissue. AV0113 represents a fully individualized somatic cell therapy.