The protocols of tumor immunotherapy have been largely developed in the past ten years due to the identification of many tumor antigens recognized specifically by CD8 and CD4 T lymphocytes. Among the various immunotherapies currently tested, passive immunotherapy (i.e injection of T lymphocytes generated and selected ex-vivo from blood or from the tumor), seems to be particularly promising. Indeed, three recent studies evidence the efficacy of such therapy in melanoma treatment. For the first time, a precise immunological follow-up was carried out, thus showing the correlation between the therapeutic benefit and the injection of tumor antigen specific T lymphocytes, and the survival and the preferential migration of these lymphocytes to the tumor sites. Although all the questions about optimal methods for this mode of therapy are not solved, these recent results constitute a major breakthrough in the field of the tumor immunotherapy.
Copyright John Libbey Eurotext 2003.