Dendritic cell/cytokine-induced killer cell-based immunotherapy in lung cancer: What we know and future landscape

Abstract

Multiple modalities for lung cancer therapy have emerged in the past decade, whereas their clinical applications and survival-beneficiary is little known. Vaccination with dendritic cells (DCs) or DCs/cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cells has shown limited success in the treatment of patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer. To evaluate and overcome these limitations in further studies, in the present review, we sum up recent progress about DCs or DCs/CIKs-based approaches for preclinical and clinical trials in patients with lung cancer and discuss some of the limited therapeutic success. Moreover, this review highlights the need to focus future studies on the development of new approaches for successful immunotherapy in patients with lung cancer.

Keywords: cytokine-induced killer cells (CIKs); dendritic cells; immunotherapy; lung cancer.