Immune anticancer response: recent advances in the treatment of renal cell carcinoma

Recent advances in the field of immunobiology have provided many opportunities for anticancer-immunotherapy. Because they express tu-mor antigen, tumor cells can be kill by T cells. Renal Cell Carcinoma (RCC) is an immunogenic tumor and metastatic RCC is presently treated by cytokines. Anticancer immunity may be achieved by different strategies: allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation, vaccination with peptides, vaccination with loaded dendritic cells or adoptive cellular therapy in which specific T cells are isolated and expanded in vitro and then infused to patients. In our group, we have chosen the adoptive transfer of in vitro activated T cells with autologous tumor antigen loaded dendritic cells. To determine the best strategy of anticancer-immunotherapy, we need rigorous control of the specificity and the phenotype of the cell therapy product linked with the immunological status of the patient (before and after infusion) and with the clinical response.