Colorectal cancer and immunity: What we know and perspectives

Table 1 Ongoing clinical trials, according to National Cancer Institute registration, using immunotherapy, according to strategy

Principle	Phase	Specificity	Registration number
(A) Peptide vaccine		Targeted peptide(s):
	I	Ras mutated	NCT01322815
		MUC-1	NCT01556789
		HER2/neu	NCT01730118
	I/II	Survivin	NCT00108875
		Frame shift peptides (MSI)	NCT01461148
		Nor-MDP	NCT01376505
	II	MUC-1	NCT01462513
(B) Whole cell cancer vaccine		Characteristic of cancer cells:
	I/II	Allogenic cancer cell	NCT00722228
			NCT00656123
(C) DC-based therapy		Characteristic of DCs:
	I/II	Autologous DCs intratumoral injection	NCT01882946
		Loaded with Frame shift antigens (MSI)	NCT01885702
		CEA-pulsed DCs+ IL-2	NCT00154713
	II	Autologous DCs	NCT01348256
			NCT01413295
(D) Inhibition of immunoregulation		Immunomodulation strategy:
	I/II	Treg depletion	NCT00986518
		Anti-CTLA4 + local radiation therapy	NCT01769222
(E) Non specific immunostimulation		Immunostimulatory agent
	I/II	Recombinant vaccinia virus	NCT01394939
		IFN, Celecoxib + combination of chemokines	NCT01545141
	II	IL-7	NCT01339000
		Heat killed whole cell mycobacterium	NCT01539824
	III	PGG beta-glucan: binding to neutrophils	NCT01309126
(F) Cell therapy		Characteristic of cells
	II	Allogenic activated lymphocytes	NCT00149006
			NCT00855452
		Autologous TILS + lymphocyte depletion	NCT01174121
		Engineered autologous anti-ESO-1 lymphocytes	NCT00670748
		Engineered autologous anti-CEA lymphocytes	NCT01723306
	NS	Autologous natural killer T cells	NCT01801852

Several strategies are used in clinical trials of immunotherapy: (A) Vaccination with direct injection of one or more peptides; (B) Immunization using whole irradiated tumor cells; (C) Vaccination using autologous dendritic cells (DCs) and/or charged DCs with one or more antigens; (D) Inhibition of immunoregulatory mechanisms; (E) Nonspecific stimulation of the immune system; (F) Adoptive cell therapy using tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) or lymphocytes from peripheral blood, possibly reworked to target specific antigens. Source: http://clinicaltrials.gov/. IL: Interleukin; IFN: Interferon.