Autologous Effector Lymphocytes clinical trials

Rituximab and Autologous Effector Lymphocytes in Non-Hodgkin Follicular Lymphoma in Response to First Line Chemotherapy

Nowadays, therapy with monoclonal antibodies is considered to be a standard treatment that increases the rate of remissions and the overall survival in patients with follicular lymphoma. Nevertheless there are an important number of patients who do not benefit from this therapy. A way to improve the efficiency of monoclonal antibodies therapy could be to improve the activity of the effector arm of the immune system. A strategy that has been proposed to obtain this improvement is the utilization of lymphocyte activated killer (LAK) cells. In addition, the combination of LAK cells with monoclonal antibodies might obtain an additive effect across the stimulation of the antibody dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC)activity. The present clinical assay proposes to study the feasibility, safety and effectiveness of treatment with autologous effector cells expanded ex vivo associated with a standard maintenance treatment with rituximab in patients with follicular lymphoma in remission after first-line treatment. In addition, we plan to analyse various biological parameters that can predict the susceptibility of patients to treatment with rituximab. Specifically, we propose to study the polymorphisms of Fc receptor, polymorphisms related to the ability of complement activation, to study both the complement activity and peripheral blood cell subpopulations that can mediate directly or indirectly dependent antibody cytotoxic effect. We will also try to correlate any of these biological parameters with the response to treatment.