Treatment of soft tissue sarcoma with dendritic cells
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A soft tissue sarcoma is a malignant, non-epithelial tumor. Such tumors may arise from muscles, adipose tissue, cartilage tissue, blood vessels, skin, etc. Sarcomas differ from cancer in that they do not grow from the epithelium.
These are relatively rare tumors. They can develop in any part of the body. There are more than 50 histological types of soft tissue sarcomas, and many of them are aggressive neoplasms with a poor prognosis.
The results of cancer treatment in developed countries are, however, constantly improving. More and more patients are being cured using modern methods. Even in advanced stages, doctors are achieving good results through innovations such as personalized dendritic cell-based cancer vaccines.
Content
- What are dendritic cells, and how do they work?
- When can dendritic cells be used?
- What is the process of treatment?
- Where can you undergo dendritic cell therapy?
What are dendritic cells, and how do they work?
Dendritic cells are antigen-presenting cells. Their task is to detect the antigen, capture it, disassemble it into "spare parts", analyze it, and provide information to T cells. Having received "instructions" from dendritic cells, T lymphocytes begin to attack a foreign object, be it a tumor, bacteria, virus, foreign body, etc.
Dendritic cells are thus used in oncology to enhance the antitumor immune response. Therefore, this type of treatment relates to immunotherapy.
Typically, personalized therapeutic vaccines are produced from the patient's dendritic cells. Cells are collected from a person, "trained" to recognize tumor antigens, and then injected into the body. From them, T cells receive information about which targets to attack. An immune response begins, which, if successful, shrinks the tumor and its metastases and, in some patients, leads to their complete disappearance. The literature has already described many cases where, as a result of dendritic cell therapy, a complete response was achieved: not a single tumor was detected using radiation diagnostics, and in some patients, the disease never recurred even after several years of follow-up.
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When can dendritic cells be used?
In the case of soft tissue sarcoma, advances in treatment options have led to improvements in survival rates and, consequently, an increase in life expectancy for many cancer patients. The standard treatment for soft tissue sarcoma is surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. In advanced stages, targeted therapy and immunotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors are used, which remove the "masking" of the tumor and prevent it from evading attacks by the immune system.
It happens that the disease continues to progress or recurs after the completion of standard treatment. Doctors then move on to second-line and then third-line treatment regimens.
If the possibilities of standard treatment are exhausted, patients are often offered to use new therapeutic methods. They have not yet proven their effectiveness, and research on experimental procedures is ongoing. This does not mean, however, that such methods are ineffective because all treatment methods that are considered standard today were also experimental at one time.
When standard treatment fails, patients are offered soft tissue sarcoma therapy with hypothermia, hyperthermia (cooling and heating), angiogenesis inhibitors, and other methods. Patients can also undergo dendritic cell soft tissue sarcoma treatment. This is a systemic method of therapy that is effective even after the spread of distant metastases. Doctors use a personalized soft tissue sarcoma vaccine, which is made for a specific patient. It represents several million autologous (the patient's own) dendritic cells treated with tumor antigens.
What is the process of treatment?
Dendritic cell (DC) therapy for soft tissue sarcomas is as follows:
- Blood is taken from the patient in a volume of about 100 ml
- Mononuclear cells are obtained from it
- Monocytes are isolated from mononuclear cells, and this process takes about two hours
- Dendritic cells mature from monocytes in a nutrient medium, and this process takes about one week
- Immature dendritic cells are sensitized by an antigen, such as a tumor lysate
- Maturation of dendritic cells is stimulated by a cytokine "cocktail"
- Immature dendritic cells turn into mature ones, and this takes about 3 days
- The resulting cells are injected into the patient's body, and the remaining cells are frozen
In total, up to 30 million dendritic cells can be obtained from 100 ml of blood. They can be injected intradermally, subcutaneously, or intramuscularly. The frequency and number of injections differ in different clinics because dendritic cell immunotherapy is not yet included in the standard treatment regimen for soft tissue sarcomas. For example, one of the treatment regimens for metastatic sarcomas described in the literature involves performing the first two injections with an interval of 2 weeks, followed by repeated injections once every 4 weeks. Treatment continues until the disease progresses. If the vaccine runs out, it can be produced again. The treatment procedure has high success rates.
Therapy is carried out on an outpatient basis. Follow-up for patients in a hospital is not required because dendritic cell-based vaccines are safe and do not cause any significant side effects. Some patients experience pain at the injection site and swollen lymph nodes, but severe complications should not be expected.
Where can you undergo dendritic cell therapy?
Not every hospital can use dendritic cells in treatment of soft tissue sarcomas. Only a few specialized centers in developed countries use this method, as it is not yet a standard procedure.
You are welcome to use the services of the Booking Health company if you want to undergo DC therapy for soft tissue sarcomas. On our website, you can find out the current prices for any procedures and operations abroad. We will select the most suitable hospital in Germany and organize your trip. The average cost of treatment for you will be lower than usual due to the absence of additional fees for foreign patients. The Booking Health specialists will make an appointment for your preferred dates, book a hotel room, and purchase airline tickets. They will also meet you at the German airport and take you to the hospital by car.
Choose treatment abroad and you will for sure get the best results!
Authors:
The article was edited by medical experts, board certified doctors Dr. Nadezhda Ivanisova and Dr. Vadim Zhiliuk. For the treatment of the conditions referred to in the article, you must consult a doctor; the information in the article is not intended for self-medication!
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Sources:
Read:
Dendritic cell therapy in cancer treatment in Germany - Vaccination against cancer
Sarcoma treatment in Germany – innovative treatment methods in German hospitals
Cancer immunotherapy in Germany