Abstract Book 2010 - CIMT Annual Meeting

037 Aarntzen | Immune monitoring
Skin-derived functional specific Tcells predict clinical outcome
upon DC vaccination in stage III and IV melanoma patients
Erik Aarntzen 1,2 , Annemiek de Boer 1 , Nicole Meeusen-Scharenborg 1 , Danita Schuurhuis 1 ,
Gerty Schreibelt 1 , Joost Lesterhuis 1,2 , Hans Jacobs 1 , Michelle van Rossum 3 , Carl Figdor 1 ,
Gosse Adema 1 , Kees Punt 2 , Jolanda de Vries 1
1
Centro de investigación médica aplicada (CIMA)
2
Bristol Myers-Squibb Pharmaceutical research institute, Princeton, NJ
3 Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center. Johns Hopkins Medical School. Baltimore, BA
80
Purpose: To improve immunotherapy against
cancer, tumor-specific immunomonitoring is essen-
tial. In this study, we analyze the predictive value of
T cell cultures from Delayed Type Hypersensitivity
(DTH) skin sites as monitoring tool after dendritic
cell (DC) vaccination in melanoma patients.
Patients and methods: In our ongoing trials, HLA-
A2.1 positive stage III and IV melanoma patients
are vaccinated with mature DC loaded with the
tumor associated antigens gp100 and tyrosinase.
After vaccination, tumor-specific response is routinely
evaluated in blood and cultures from DTH
infiltrating lymphocytes (DIL).
Results: Almost all stage III and IV patients show
both proliferative and humoral responses to the
control antigen KLH. Tumor-specific CD8+ Tcells
are rarely detected in peripheral blood (6 out of 73
patients tested). In the vast majority of patients,
sufficient cell numbers are obtained from DIL cultures
for tetramerstaining and functional analysis.
We show a strong predictive value of the presence
of functional specific CD8+ Tcells in DIL cultures
for favorable clinical outcome in both stage III
(n=75) and IV (n=85) melanoma patients.
Conclusion: Our findings show that the presence
of functional tumor-specific Tcells from DTH skin
biopsies highly predict clinical outcome.