Treatment of advanced metastasized breast cancer with bone marrow-derived tumour-reactive memory T cells: a pilot clinical study

Background Breast cancer patients frequently harbour tumour-reactive memory T cells in their bone marrow (BM) but not in the blood. After reactivation ex-vivo these cells rejected autologous breast tumours in xenotransplanted mice demonstrating therapeutic potential upon reactivation and mobilization into the blood. We conducted a clinical pilot study on metastasized breast cancer patients to investigate if ex-vivo reactivation of tumour-reactive BM memory T cells and their adoptive transfer is feasible and increases the frequencies of tumour-reactive T cells in the blood.