Immune gene therapy in urology

Abstract

Effective treatments are needed urgently for metastatic disease in bladder, prostate, and renal cell cancer. In the past few years, several new approaches for treating these conditions have been proposed, including gene therapy. A number of different strategies have been developed to accomplish urologic cancer gene therapy. Genetic immunomodulation strategies attempt to activate immune defense mechanisms against tumor cells by transfer of tumor antigens, cytokine genes, or strongly immunogenic cell surface molecules. In this review, we illustrate the recent developments in immune gene therapy.