A prospective study of the efficacy of a combination of autologous dendritic cells, cytokine-induced killer cells, and chemotherapy in advanced non-small cell lung cancer patients

Dendritic cells (DC) play a crucial role in the induction of an effective antitumor immune response. Cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cells, a subset of T lymphocytes, have the capacity to eliminate cancer cells. This study was to evaluate the correlation between the frequency of DC/CIK immunotherapies following regular chemotherapy, the time-to-progression (TTP), and overall survival (OS) of advanced non-small lung cancer patients. Sixty patients with III_B–IV non-small-cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) were enrolled from August 2007 to December 2009 and were randomized into two groups. All 60 patients received four courses of navelbine–platinum (NP) chemotherapy. In one group, 30 patients were treated with adoptive autologous DC/CIK cell transfusion twice every 30 days. In the other group, the patients received immunotherapies more than twice every 30 days. The adverse effects, TTP, and OS were evaluated between the two groups. Median survival time of all 60 patients was 13.80 months. The 1-, 2-, and 3-year overall survival rates were 60.0, 21.7, and 15.0 %, respectively. The 1-, 2-, and 3-year overall survival rates of patients receiving more than two immunotherapies were 63.3, 30.0, and 23.3 %, and the rates of those receiving two immunotherapies were 56.7, 13.3, and 6.7 %, respectively. The difference between the two groups was statistically significant (P = 0.037). Compared with patients in the fewer immunotherapies group, TTP in the group receiving more immunotherapies significantly prolonged, with the median improving from 6.2 months (95 % CI, 5.35–9.24) to 7.3 months (95 % CI, 5.45–6.95; P = 0.034). The adverse effects of chemoimmunotherapy were tolerable. Advanced NSCLC patients can benefit from the combination of DC/CIK immunotherapies following conventional chemotherapy. More than two immunotherapies improved TTP and OS of those patients in this study.