Clinical Efficacy Of Cellular Immunotherapy Combined With Chemotherapy For Treatment Of Recurrent Ovarian Cancer

Objective:To evaluate the efficacy and safety of cellular immunotherapy(CIT) usingautologous NK cells, CIK cells, and γδT cells in combination with chemotherapyin patients with recurrent epithelial ovarian cancer.Methods:Patients who were diagnosed recurrent epithelial ovarian cancer at thefirst time in the First Hospital of Jilin University from September2009toAugust2014were treated with the combination therapy (chemo/CIT group)or chemotherapy alone (control group).The condition of immune,responserate(RR),disease control rate(DCR), progression-free survival (PFS), overallsurvival (OS), quality of life (QOL), and adverse events were investigated.Results:In this study,patents in chemo/CIT group (33cases) and control group (72cases) had no significant difference in clinical and pathological data.Themedian follow up time was16months.The percentage of CIK(CD56+CD3+),NK (CD56+CD3-) and γδT(Vγ9+) before and after inductionwere4.39%(1.5%-8%) vs46.32%(27%-50%),10.35%(5.1%-12.6%) vs95.28%(70.1%-99.6%),4.72%(2.61%-11.2%) vs90.64%(60.5%-97.9%),respectively. After the treatment, the levels of CD3-CD56+, CD19+cells inperipheral blood of chemo/CIT group were significantly higher than those in control group(P<0.05).There was no significant difference in response ratesand disease control rates between the groups.The PFS2in chemo/CIT vscontrol group was12.1months(3.0~49.9months) vs8.0months(2.8~63.1months), respectively(P=0.044); After three or more courses CIT was given,the median PFS2of the chemo/CIT group was significantly longer comparedwith the control group (P=0.034).The median OS in two groups were18.2(3.2~63.9) months vs13.5(3.1~63.1) months(P=0.046),longer OS can beseen when three or more courses CIT was given(P=0.041). The quality of lifescore displayed that the combination of CIT and chemotherapy improved thequality of life(P=0.04).CIT was well tolerated and not related to anysignificant adverse events.Conclusions:Compared with chemotherapy alone, a combination of autologous NKcells, CIK cells, and γδT cells and chemotherapy in patients withrecurrent epithelial ovarian cancer improved the immune function, prolongthe survival time,improved QOL,and was safe.