Recently mutual interactions of chemotherapy and immunotherapy have been widely accepted, and several synergistic mechanisms have been elucidated as well. Although much attention has focused on the combination of DC vaccine and chemotherapy, there are still many problems remaining to be resolved, including the optimal treatment schedule of the novel strategy. In this article, we methodically examined literature about the combination strategy of DC vaccine and conventional chemotherapy. Based on the published preclinical and clinical trials, treatment schedules of the combinational strategy can be classified as three modalities: chemotherapy with subsequent DC vaccine (post-DC therapy); DC vaccine followed by chemotherapy (pre-DC therapy); concurrent DC vaccine with chemotherapy (con-DC therapy).The safety and efficacy of this combinatorial immunotherapy strategy and its potential mechanisms are discussed. Although we could not draw conclusions on optimal treatment schedule, we summarize some tips which may be beneficial to trial design in the future.
Keywords: Cancer, chemotherapy, clinical trials, combined chemo-immunotherapy, DC vaccine, treatment schedule.
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