Abstract
Background: Adoptive cellular therapies have gained considerable ground while becoming an established form of therapy for hematologic malignancies, now a fifth pillar of treatment after chemotherapy, surgery, radiation and targeted therapies. The most prominent example is chimeric antigen T cell receptor therapies. These therapies have shown superior clinical efficacy in hematologic malignancies, but are less effective against solid tumors. This paper describes the combination of CAR T cells with the innate immune cells natural killer cells in solid tumors in the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment.
Results: CAR NK cells have been shown in a number of solid tumors in the context of the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment to have clinical efficacy and exhibit superior safety profiles when compared with original CAR T cells. In preclinical models and ongoing clinical studies, anti-tumor activity has been shown in prostate cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, glioblastoma and ovarian cancer that benefits from the inherent cytotoxicity of natural killer cells.
Conclusion: Future studies should focus on using the advantages of CAR NK cells in clinical and translational settings.