Glioblastoma multiforme. Immunotherapy of glial tumors of the brain and spinal cord

Disease: Glioblastoma multiforme (GM), astrocytoma, oligodendroglioma, glioma of the brain stem. The therapy is meant for the patients with primary and repeated relapses of the brain tumors who received primary combined therapy according to the healthcare standards.

To receive the therapy: the patient’s tumor must be sampled to prepare individual anti-tumor immune cell products. If the sample is not available and the tissue has not been cryopreserved, the tissue can be sampled repeatedly in the case of relapse. For it, when the relapse is confirmed before the repeated surgery the specialists of our hospital must be consulted about the sampling, storage and delivery of the sample that should be isolated in the course of neurosurgery. When the sample of the tumor is isolated, the tissues are homogenized and further used as the source of the tumor antigens for immunotherapy.

Therapy principle: the individually tailored (personalized) autologous cell products are used: anti-tumor dendritic vaccines and/or cytotoxic lymphocytes. Dendritic cells and lymphocytes are isolated from the patient’s PBMCSs with the separator. The cells are expanded in the laboratory and incubated with tumor antigens to obtain the specific cell subpopulations and mature dendritic cells to provide the basis for immunotherapy. The cytotoxic lymphocytes can be administered both intravenously or intrathecally through spinal tap or through an Ommaya reservoir. The time to prepare cell immune products is the following: dendritic vaccine – 5 days, cytotoxic T lymphocytes – 2 to 3 weeks.

Results: Arrest of the progress of neurooncological diseases, increase of the survival rates and immune prevention of the relapses of the tumors of brain and spinal cord. Increased survival median of the glioblastoma multiforme cases from 12-15 months to 36-43 months, and the cases of the metastases to the brain from 6-7 to 18 months and more.