Immunotherapy of Malignant Tumors Using Antisense Anti-IGF-I Approach: Case of Glioblastoma

The review article describes the criteria established for methodology of antisense anti IGF-I therapy of malignant tumors, particularly of glioblastoma. The cancer patients, after classical therapy of surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, have undergone the injection of genetically modified autologous malignant cells—transfected by IGF-I antisense/triple helix expression vectors. For all cancer patients supervised for up to 19 months, the period corresponding to minimum survival of glioblastoma patients, the following common immune criteria for “anti IGF-I” strategy were admitted: 1) characteristics of cell “vaccines”—absence of IGF-I and expression of MHC-I in cloned transfected cells; 2) the peripheral blood lymphocytes, PBL cells, removed after every of two successive vaccinations, demonstrate an increasing level of CD8+ and CD8+28+ molecules (with a switch from CD8+11b+ to CD8+11b-).