Breast cancer treatment by transplantations of dendritic cells and cytokine-induced killer cells: An update on clinical trials

Abstract

Breast cancer is the world's most common cancer in women and is the leading cause of their cancer-related mortality. Its early diagnosis with conventional therapies such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy can give good results in most breast cancer patients. However, these therapies provide poor outcomes in metastatic breast cancers or late-stage breast cancer. Therefore, as another effort for breast cancer treatment, immunotherapy is now considered the fourth-line cancer treatment besides conventional therapies. In this article, we focus on breast cancer treatment by transplantation of cytokine-induced killer cells (CIKs) and dendritic cells (DCs). While CIKs are effector cells that can directly attack and kill breast cancer cells, DCs support other immune cells in including CIKs in antitumor activities. Although transplantation of CIKs or DCs alone gave limited results in breast cancer treatment, the combination of CIKs and DCs in current clinical trials demonstrated significant results. Thus, we propose that CIK-DC therapy will emerge as a new option for breast cancer treatment soon.