Efficiency of adoptive immunotherapy for melanoma: a case report

A lot of research is focused on finding better treatment options for cancer. Along with radical treatment, cancer immunotherapy has proved to be useful for a growing number of cancer patients. We report a case of stage IIIB melanoma in a 53-year woman who received adoptive immunotherapy with cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cells. For activation, mononuclear cells were collected from the patient's peripheral blood and cultivated in X-vivo20 medium containing IL-2 (250 U/ml) and IL-15 (50 ng/ml) for 10-14 days. From January 2015 to May 2016, a total of 39 CIK cell infusions were administered intradermally to 2-4 points in the paravertebral area, every 1-2 weeks. Flow cytometric analysis of peripheral blood lymphocytes in 3 months after starting CIK cell immunotherapy showed a decrease in the number of NK-cells from 18 % to 12 % and CD314 + NK-cells from 16% to 6%. The levels of CD38+, CD38+Т, HLA-DR+ and HLA-DR+Т lymphocytes increased from 53 %, 24 %, 21 %, 9 % and 19 % to 66 %, 51 %, 28 %, 20 % and 29 %, respectively. There was evidence of reactive changes in lymph nodes and stable disease. Metastases on the left shoulder tended to decrease, and they completely disappeared 9 months after starting adoptive immunotherapy. Partial regression of metastasis on the right shoulder was observed 11 month after staring adoptive immunotherapy. Adoptive immunotherapy demonstrated the increased disease-free survival for the patient with melanoma. In conclusion, CIK immunotherapy may be an effective treatment method for metastatic melanoma.