Immunotherapeutic approaches to the treatment of bone and soft tissue sarcomas.

Overview

The recent explosion of knowledge in the field of immunology has resulted in the development of many new and exciting forms of treatment for cancer patients. The identification of murine MoAbs with reactivity against antigens found on sarcomas has been accomplished in recent years. However, many problems exist with these reagents. As these antibodies are raised in mice, they represent foreign proteins for humans. As such, the development of immunity against the antibodies has been one of the major problems in applying this modality in the clinic. Other problems, such as specificity, antigenic modulation, tumor cell heterogeneity, and trafficking of the antibody to the tumor, remain to be resolved. Current research involving the development of chimeric or human MoAbs may overcome some of these obstacles. Cell-mediated approaches to therapy have met with enthusiasm and modest success so far. Although LAK cell therapy has not resulted in tumor regressions in the small number of sarcoma patients treated, further studies to define the true response rate are underway. It is possible that treatment with tumor-specific cells such as TIL or "educated" lymphocytes will be more effective in attaining regression in patients with metastatic bone and soft tissue sarcomas.