Cellular therapies for lymphoma

Adoptive immunotherapy approaches have a defined clinical role in treating relapse of certain malignancies and some types of infection after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplantation.^1-5 Because of the success of this approach in this scenario a number of studies are investigating whether immunotherapy approaches may be of benefit in the therapy of lymphoma. This modality of treatment is attractive because patients with lymphoma who do not enter remission or who subsequently relapse are rarely cured using therapy at conventional doses.^6,7 Moreover, nonfatal sequelae of therapy, such as altered somatic growth, infertility, and restrictive lung disease, can seriously affect the quality of life of survivors.⁸ It would therefore be desirable to develop novel therapies that could improve disease-free survival in relapsed/refractory patients and might ultimately reduce the incidence of long-term treatmentrelated complications in all patients. This chapter therefore reviews the current status of adoptive immunotherapy strategies for lymphoma.