Purpose of review: To provide an update on cell-based immunotherapies in solid tumors particularly in gynecological cancers.
Recent findings: Improvements have been made in engineering T cells to overcome the immunosuppressive environment in ovarian cancer. Significant efforts are underway to create 'off the shelf' cell therapies which leverage natural killer (NK) cells and would not rely on engineering a patient's T cells.
Summary: Efforts to target solid tumors using cell-based therapies are expanding into cell types other than T cells (NK cells and macrophages) which may have a lower risk of significant side effects and higher efficacy in solid tumors than chimeric antigen receptor T cells.