ABSTRACT
I. INTRODUCTION Many malignant endocrine tumors are rare diseases with poor prognosis. Differentiated tumors are characterized by the expression and secretion of hormones of the origin tissue (corticotropin, calcitonin, parathyroid hormone, insulin, glucagon, or gut peptides) or the expression of neuroendocrine markers including chromogranin A, neuron-specific enolase, and synaptophysin [1-3]. The therapy of choice for these malignancies is radical surgical revision of the tumor masses. Despite progress in radiation and chemotherapy regimes, many metastatic forms remain incurable by conventional therapies. Developments in immunology within the last two decades have revealed increasing information about the molecular basis of tumor-host interactions. The convergence of information resulting from basic studies in cellular immunology, along with increasing sophistication in biotechnology, which hasmade biological reagents available in pharmacological amounts, has opened novel possibilities for the development of effective immunotherapies for patients with different kind of cancers, including neuroendocrine malignancies. This chapter will discuss new developments in cellular immunotherapies, e.g., dendritic cell-based protocols, gene therapy, as well as the introduction of cytokines and antibodies for the treatment of neuroendocrine malignancies.
