| Adoptive Immunotherapy or Cellular Immunotherapy. Adoptive immunotherapy takes advantage of the cancer fighting abilities of T lymphocytes. T lymphocytes are a type of white blood cell unique in their ability to recognize antigens and directly kill cells expressing those antigens. In adoptive immunotherapy, T lymphocytes which recognize tumor are isolated from a person with cancer. These T cells are grown in the laboratory to great numbers (often more than a billionfold) and stimulated to be more effective killers. Potentially, these cells can be infused back into the cancer patient with the idea that these lymphocytes will seek and destroy cancer cells. Scientists hope that expanding and stimulating lymphocytes in the laboratory will allow adoptive immunotherapy to overcome the problems of weak tumor responses and cancer-induced immune suppression. This approach has been used experimentally to eradicate cancer in animals with tumors. Additionally, physicians have used T cell therapies in the treatment of renal cell (kidney) cancer, melanoma, and lymphoma with some success. Early studies used T cells isolated from the tumor itself known as tumor infiltrating lymphocytes or "TIL" cells. We now have a better understanding of which parts of the tumor are recognized by those lymphocytes and can focus on expanding lymphocytes that are truly antigen-specific. We hope that by making the immune response more specific, adoptive therapy will be more effective.
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