Dendritic cell immunotherapy for solid tumors: evaluation of the DCVax® platform in the treatment of glioblastoma multiforme

DCVax(®) (Northwest Biotherapeutics, Inc., MD, USA) is a platform technology for delivering dendritic cell based therapeutic vaccines for a variety of cancers, including glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). DCVax(®)-L, one of the implementations of the DCVax platform, provides personalized active immunotherapy composed of autologous dendritic cells pulsed with autologous whole tumor lysate. Clinical trials with DCVax-L for GBM included previous Phase I/II clinical trials and an ongoing Phase III trial. Preliminary reports of patient outcomes after administration of the DCVax-L vaccine provide a promising therapeutic paradigm for patients with both initially diagnosed and recurrent GBM. Here we evaluate the current literature and clinical experience with the DCVax platform, with a particular focus on GBM treatment.