Lymphocyte subpopulations in melanoma patients treated with dendritic cell vaccines.

The main goal of cancer immunotherapy is to induce or boost tumor-specific effector cells able to eliminate or reduce tumor progression. In this study, we characterized lymphocyte phenotypes in melanoma patients receiving dendritic cell (DC)-based vaccinotherapy. We found that several biological markers served as unfavorable prognostic factors for patients' response to therapy. This included decrease of CD4(+) and CD8(+) lymphocyte levels, 10% and higher increase of CD16(+)CD3(+)CD8(+) lymphocyte population, and increase of CD]6(+)CD8(+)perforin(+) T lymphocytes, especially in combination with decreased levels of CD16(+)CD8(-)perforin(+) and CD8(+)CD16(-)perforin(+) cells. increase in CD8+CD16-perforin+ T lymphocytes with normal levels of CD16(+)CD8(-)perforin(+) cells and the absence of CD16(+)CD8(+)perforin(+) and regulatory lymphocytes were shown to be the positive prognostic markers for patients' response to DC vaccines.