Deciphering Natural Killer Cell Cytotoxicity Against Medulloblastoma in vitro and in vivo: Implications for Immunotherapy.

Purpose: Medulloblastoma (MB) is the most prevalent paediatric brain tumour. Despite improvements in patient survival with current treatment strategies, the quality of life of these patients remains poor owing to the sequelae and relapse risk. An alternative, or, in addition to the current standard treatment, could be considered immunotherapy, such as Natural Killer cells (NK).

Modification of NK cell subset repartition and functions in granulocyte colony-stimulating factor-mobilized leukapheresis after expansion with IL-15.

The ability of natural killer (NK) cells to kill tumor cells without antigen recognition makes them appealing as an adoptive immunotherapy. However, NK cells are not routinely used in the context of leukemic relapse after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Patients who experience relapse can be treated with donor lymphocyte infusions (DLI) based on small-cell fractions frozen at the time of transplantation.