Zhang YC, et al. – The efficacy and safety of dendritic cells–cytokine–induced killer (DC–CIK) cells immunotherapy were systematically evaluated for treating pancreatic cancer (PC) patients. DC–CIK immunotherapy combined with chemotherapy was effective for PC treatment, indicated by prolonging the PC patients’ survival time, which benefited from a reconstructed immune function of patients.

Methods

• From published articles of clinical trials, data were collected.
• Experts searched databases including Web of Science, EMBASE, PubMed, Cochrane Library, Wanfang, and CNKI.
• The overall response rate (ORR), disease control rate (DCR), overall survival (OS), patients’ quality of life (QoL), immune function, and adverse events were the main outcome measures in this research.
• Between DC–CIK immunotherapy and chemotherapy (combined therapy) and chemotherapy alone, comparative analysis was conducted.

Results

• 14 trials with 1,088 PC patients involved, were covered by this analysis.
• In addition, the combined therapy showed advantages over chemotherapy alone in ORR (odds ratio [OR] =1.69, 95% confidence interval [CI] =1.20–2.38, P=0.003), DCR (OR =2.33, 95% CI =1.63–3.33, P<0.00001), OS (1-year OS, OR =3.61, 95% CI =2.41–5.40, P<0.00001; 3-year OS, OR =2.65, 95% CI =1.56–4.50, P=0.0003) and patients’ QoL (P<0.01) with statistical significance.
• After immunotherapy, they reported increase in lymphocyte subsets’ percentages of CD3+ (P<0.00001), CD4+ (P=0.01), CD3+CD56+ (P<0.00001), and cytokine levels of IFN-γ (P<0.00001), and the percentages of CD4+CD25+CD127low(P<0.00001) and levels of IL-4 (P<0.0001) were significantly decreased.
• On the other hand, analysis on CD8+(P=0.59) and CD4+/CD8+ ratio (P=0.64) did not show a significant difference.