autologous tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy

Autologous tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy is a form of personalized cellular immunotherapy in which a patient's own tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs)—immune cells that have migrated into a tumor—are harvested from a tumor biopsy, expanded to very large numbers ex vivo (in the lab), and then reinfused into the patient following lymphodepleting chemotherapy. TILs specifically recognize and kill tumor cells by targeting antigens present on the cancer cell surface. The process aims to boost and rejuvenate the patient’s immune system by leveraging naturally tumor-reactive T cells, thereby increasing the antitumor immune response. This approach has demonstrated efficacy, especially in metastatic melanoma even after failure of checkpoint inhibitors, and is under active investigation for a variety of other solid tumor malignancies such as cervical cancer and non-small cell lung cancer. The therapy usually involves pre-infusion chemotherapy (non-myeloablative lymphodepletion) and sometimes adjunctive interleukin-2 to promote TIL activity post-infusion. The therapy is regarded as highly personalized and potentially durable, especially for patients with otherwise treatment-refractory solid tumors[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8].

Other names

tumor-derived autologous T cell immunotherapytumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapyTIL