Adoptive Cellular Immunotherapy for Solid Tumors

Abstract

Adoptive cellular therapy (ACT) has shown promise for the treatment of cancer specifically the use of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy for leukemias and lymphomas. But the translation of this success to solid tumors remained elusive. Solid tumors are characterized by an immunosuppressive microenvironment that renders immune effector cells inactive and exhausted. This review is focused on describing the various strategies of adoptive cellular therapy for solid tumors including tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), T cell receptor (TCR) transduced T-cells, CAR-T cells, natural killer (NK) cells, and gamma-delta (γδ) T cells. The role of combination therapy with checkpoint inhibitors to reverse tumor resistance is also discussed.