Background: The bevacizumab and irinotecan protocol is considered a standard treatment regimen for recurrent malignant glioma. Recent advances in immunotherapy have hinted that vaccination with dendritic cells could become an alternative salvage therapy for the treatment of recurrent malignant glioma.
Methods: A search was performed on PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, and Embase in order to identify studies with patients receiving bevacizumab plus irinotecan or dendritic cell therapy for recurrent malignant gliomas.
The failure of therapies targeting tumor angiogenesis may be caused by anti-angiogenic resistance mechanisms induced by VEGF and non-VEGF pathways alterations. Anti-angiogenic therapy failure is also attributed to immune system, acting by tumor-associated macrophages that release pro-angiogenic factors and a consequent increase of blood vessels. Recently, in a study by Rheal et al.
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