Adoptive immunotherapy after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation

Adoptive immunotherapy may be performed with either autologous or allogeneic lymphocytes. Autologous cellular immunotherapy is hindered by the inability to break anergy or self-tolerance. Advances in this area have focused on the use of tumor-specific lymphocytes activated by antigen-pulsed or transgene modified dendritic cells. Allogeneic cellular immunotherapy is effective even with the use of non-specific and unactivated donor lymphocytes. Allogeneic cellular therapy is, however, complicated by graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). Advances in allogeneic immunotherapy will require better control of GVHD.