Journal of Translational Medicine (Jan 2025)

Application of adoptive cell therapy in malignant melanoma

  • Qianrong Hu,
  • Jiangying Xuan,
  • Lu Wang,
  • Kangjie Shen,
  • Zixu Gao,
  • Yuhong Zhou,
  • Chuanyuan Wei,
  • Jianying Gu

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12967-025-06093-2
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 23, no. 1
pp. 1 – 12

Abstract

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Abstract Cutaneous melanoma is one of the most aggressive skin cancers originating from skin pigment cells. Patients with advanced melanoma suffer a poor prognosis and generally cannot benefit well from surgical resection and chemo/target therapy due to metastasis and drug resistance. Thus, adoptive cell therapy (ACT), employing immune cells with specific tumor-recognizing receptors, has emerged as a promising therapeutic approach to display on-tumor toxicity. This review discusses the application, efficacy, limitations, as well as future prospects of four commonly utilized approaches -including tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell, engineered T-cell receptor T cells, and chimeric antigen receptor NK cells- in the context of malignant melanoma.

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