adoptive immunotherapy

noun

: the transfer of immune cells with antitumor activity into a patient to mediate tumor regression

especially : treatment typically for cancer in which lymphocytes removed from a patient are cultured with interleukin-2 and are returned to the patient's body

Word History

First Known Use

1965, in the meaning defined above

Medical Definition

adoptive immunotherapy

noun

adop·​tive immunotherapy ə-ˈdäp-tiv- 

: the transfer of immune cells with antitumor action into a patient to mediate tumor regression

especially : treatment typically for cancer in which lymphocytes removed from a patient are cultured with interleukin-2 (as to generate lymphokine-activated killer cells or induce proliferation of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes) and are returned to the patient's body

Known as adoptive immunotherapy, it involves stimulating T cells by exposing them to tumor cells or antigens in the laboratory and then injecting expanded populations of the treated cells into patients.

—Lloyd J. Old, Scientific American