Injecting cultured bone marrow cells into a brain tumor triggers an immune system attack on the cancer.

Immunotherapy is a new approach to cancer, based upon activating the immune system to treat cancer cells as 'foreign' and so to destroy them. Much research has focussed on using dendritic cells - which are elements of the immune system that seek out cancer cells and label them for destruction.

Researchers at the Cedars-Sinai Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute have been using dendritic cells cultured from bone marrow in animal experiments. They find that animals who have brain tumors survive much longer if they are injected with the cells, for these mop up cancer cells which have already been exposed to radiation. They also move into the lymph nodes to attack cancer which has spread.

The hope is that the dendritic cell approach may be able to help patients with brain tumors, even when these are in locations difficult to access with surgery. If the promising results with animals can be reproduced in humans, there will be new hope for patients with hard-to-treat brain cancers.

Source

Journal of Immunotherapy 3rd March 2003