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Silun Xie,1 Zhenyi Wu,1 Lizhi Niu,2 Jibing Chen,3 Yunkun Ma,1 Mingjie Zhang11Research and Development Department, HANK Bioengineering Co.,Ltd, Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Oncology, Fuda Cancer Hospital, Jinan University, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Central Laboratory, Fuda Cancer Hospital, Jinan University, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of ChinaBackground: Natural killer (NK) cells can be used as an adoptive immunotherapy to treat cancer patients.Purpose: In this study, we evaluated the efficacy of highly activated NK (HANK) cell immunotherapy in patients with advanced lung cancer.Patients and methods: Between March 2016 and September 2017, we enrolled 13 patients who met the enrollment criteria. Donor peripheral blood monocytes were isolated from patients and the NK cells were expanded. After 12 days of culture, the cells were collected and infused intravenously on days 13 to 15. The enrolled patients received at least one course including three times of infusions. The lymphocyte subsets, cytokine production, and the expression of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and thymidine kinase 1 (TK1) were measured before treatment and after the last infusion.Results: No side effects were observed. After a three-month follow-up, the percentage of patients who achieved stable disease and progressive disease was 84.6% and 15.4%. Moreover, the level of IFN-γ was significantly higher after treatment and the level of CEA decreased substantially. The overall immune function of the patients who received the NK cell therapy remained stable.Conclusion: This is the first study to describe the efficacy of NK cell therapy of patients with advanced lung cancer. These clinical observations demonstrated that NK cell is safe and efficient for advanced lung cancer therapy.Keywords: adoptive immunotherapy, highly activated natural killer cells, immune function, lung cancer

Shupeng Liu,1,2,* Zilin Qin,1,* Jiongyuan Xu,1 Jianying Zeng,1 Jibing Chen,1 Lizhi Niu,1 Meng Xu2 1Department of Oncology, Fuda Cancer Hospital, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510665, China; 2Department of Oncology, First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University, Guangzhou 510630, China *These authors contributed equally to this work Objective: We aimed to determine the safety and efficacy of irreversible electroporation (IRE) combined with chemotherapy for unresectable pancreatic carcinoma (stage III/IV). Methods: We prospectively enrolled 54 patients (30 men; median age 61.0 years; range 41–73 years) undergoing IRE with or without chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer between July 2015 and August 2016. Kaplan–Meier estimates were used to analyze progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). Safety was assessed based on the occurrence of adverse events. Results: All patients successfully underwent IRE. Major IRE-related complications were observed in four patients (7.4%). Gastrointestinal hemorrhage only developed in cases undergoing IRE via the open method, and was successfully managed with interventional embolization and/or vascular ligation. Any minor complications in the cases were alleviated within 14 days after symptomatic treatment. Overall, the performance status score decreased from 1.06 to 0.89 at 3 months after IRE (P

Silun Xie,1 Zhengyi Wu,1 Liang Zhou,2 Yingqing Liang,2 Xiaohua Wang,2 Lizhi Niu,2 Kecheng Xu,2 Jibing Chen,2 Mingjie Zhang1 1Research and Development Department, Shenzhen Hank Bioengineering Institute, Shenzhen 518004, China; 2Department of Central Laboratory, Fuda Cancer Hospital of Jinan University, Guangzhou 510665, China Abstract: For advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients, liver transplantation (LT) is an optimal treatment with limitation of high risk of tumor recurrence related to the immunosuppressive chemotherapy as usually recommended. In this study, a 29-year-old man suffered from HCC recurrence after LT. He underwent radiotherapy (total dose: 45 Gy) but had no significant response. Then, he received iodine-125 seed implantation combined with allogenic natural killer (NK) cell immunotherapy. Liver function, immune function, circulating tumor cell counts and computed tomography scans were evaluated to determine the clinical effect. We found that this combined treatment produced enhanced immune function of the patient and reduction in tumor size. This is the first report of an efficacy and safety study about clinical regimen comprising allogenic NK cell immunotherapy combined with iodine-125 seed implantation for the treatment of HCC recurrence after LT. Keywords: hepatic carcinoma, iodine seeds implantation, natural killer cells, allogenic

Bladder cancer is the most common malignancy of the urinary tract and in many patients is metastatic at diagnosis. Chemotherapy is the standard treatment for these patients but has serious side effects and in many patients is not tolerated. To avoid the side effects of systemic chemotherapy, patients with late stage bladder cancer have sought cryotherapy in our hospital. We reviewed data for the past 4 years to evaluate the safety and efficiency of percutaneous cryotherapy in 23 patients. Within 3 days after cryosurgery, all complications of bladder cancer (e.g. hematuria, urinary irritation, hypogastralgia, lumbago) had decreased to some degree. No new complications (e.g. bladder perforation) occurred and all complications had disappeared completely after 2 weeks. The progression-free survival (PFS) of these patients was 14 ± 8 months. There was no effect on PFS of tumor location or histopathology; however, differentiation status and tumor size influenced the therapeutic effect of percutaneous cryoablation. In conclusion, percutaneous cryotherapy may be a safe and efficacious therapeutic option in the treatment of metastatic bladder cancer.

Esophageal cancer is common in China. There is a lack of treatment strategies for metastatic esophageal cancer (MEC) after radical surgery on the primary tumor. Cryoablation is an attractive option because tumor necrosis can be safely induced in a minimally invasive manner. This study assessed its therapeutic effect in MEC after failure of radical surgery. One hundred and forty patients met the inclusion criteria from May, 2003 to March, 2011. Comprehensive cryotherapy of multiple metastases was performed on 105 patients; 35 received chemotherapy. No severe complications occurred during or after cryoablation. Overall survival (OS) was assessed according to therapeutic protocol, pathologic type, treatment timing and number of procedures. The OS of patients who received comprehensive cryoablation (44 ± 20 months) was significantly longer than that of those who underwent chemotherapy (23 ± 24 months; P = 0.0006). In the cryotherapy group, the OS for squamous cell carcinoma (45 ± 19 months) was longer than that for adenocarcinoma (33 ± 18 months; P = 0.0435); the OS for timely cryoablation (46 ± 19 months) was longer than that for delayed cryoablation (33 ± 20 months; P = 0.0193); the OS for multiple cryoablation (50 ± 17 months) was longer than that for single cryoablation (37 ± 20 months; P = 0.0172); and the OS for cryo-immunotherapy (56 ± 17 months) was longer than that for cryoablation alone (39 ± 19 months; P = 0.0011). Thus, comprehensive cryotherapy may have advantages over chemotherapy in the treatment of MEC and, in patients with squamous cell carcinoma, supplementary immunotherapy and timely and multiple cryoablation may be associated with a better prognosis.