Cellular immunotherapy for neuroblastoma: A review of current vaccine and adoptive T cell therapeutics

Immunotherapy is an attractive option for patients with high risk neuroblastoma due to their poor long-term survival rates after conventional treatment. Neuroblastoma cells are derived from the embryonic neural crest and therefore express tumor antigens not widely seen in normal cells, making them potential targets for immunologic attack. There is already considerable experience with monoclonal antibodies that target these tumor associated antigens, and in this review we focus on more exploratory approaches, using tumor vaccines and adoptive transfer of tumor-directed T cells.