TY  - JOUR
A1  - Eyrich, Matthias
A1  - Rachor, Johannes
A1  - Schreiber, Susanne C.
A1  - Wölfl, Matthias
A1  - Schlegel, Paul G.
T1  - Dendritic cell vaccination in pediatric gliomas: lessons learnt and future perspectives
JF  - Frontiers in Pediatrics
N2  - Immunotherapy of malignant gliomas with autologous dendritic cells (DCs) in addition to surgery and radiochemotherapy has been a focus of intense research during the past decade. Since both children and adults are affected by this highly aggressive brain tumor, 10–15% of the several hundred vaccinated patients represent children, making pediatric glioma patients the largest uniform pediatric vaccination cohort so far. In general, DC vaccination in malignant gliomas has been shown to be safe and several studies with a non-vaccinated control group could clearly demonstrate a survival benefit for the vaccinated patients. Interestingly, children and adolescents below 21 years of age seem to benefit even more than adult patients. This review summarizes the findings of the 25 clinical trials published so far and gives a perspective how DC vaccination could be implemented as part of multimodal therapeutic strategies in the near future.
KW  - pediatrics
KW  - malignant glioma
KW  - DC vaccination
KW  - clinical trial
KW  - immunotherapy
Y1  - 2013
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-96937
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Wiegering, Verena
A1  - Schick, Judith
A1  - Beer, Meinrad
A1  - Gattenlöhner, Stefan
A1  - Girschick, Hermann
A1  - Liese, Johannes
A1  - Schlegel, Paul
A1  - Eyrich, Matthias
T1  - Varicella-zoster virus infections in immunocompromised patients - a single centre 6-years analysis
N2  - Background: Infection with varicella-zoster virus (VZV) contemporaneously with malignant disease or immunosuppression represents a particular challenge and requires individualized decisions and treatment. Although the increasing use of varicella-vaccines in the general population and rapid initiation of VZVimmunoglobulins and acyclovir in case of exposure has been beneficial for some patients, immunocompromised individuals are still at risk for unfavourable courses. Methods: In this single center, 6-year analysis we review incidence, hospitalization and complication rates of VZVinfections in our center and compare them to published data. Furthermore, we report three instructive cases. Results: Hospitalization rate of referred children with VZV-infections was 45%, among these 17% with malignancies and 9% under immunosuppressive therapy. Rate of complications was not elevated in these two high-risk cohorts, but one ALL-patient died due to VZV-related complications. We report one 4-year old boy with initial diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia who showed a rapidly fatal outcome of his simultaneous varicella-infection, one 1.8-year old boy with an identical situation but a mild course of his disease, and an 8.5-year old boy with a steroiddependent nephrotic syndrome. This boy developed severe hepatic involvement during his varicella-infection but responded to immediate withdrawl of steroids and administration of acyclovir plus single-dose cidofovir after nonresponse to acyclovir after 48 h. Conclusion: Our data show that patients with malignant diseases or immunosuppressive therapy should be hospitalized and treated immediately with antiviral agents. Despite these measures the course of VZV-infections can be highly variable in these patients. We discuss aids to individual decision-making for these difficult situations.
KW  - Varizellen-Virus
KW  - varicella-zoster virus immunosuppression
KW  - pediatrics
KW  - cidofovir
Y1  - 2011
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-68723
ER  -