Dr. Bosse on Challenges With Immunotherapy in Pediatric Cancers

Kristopher Bosse, MD, attending physician, Division of Oncology, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, discusses challenges with immunotherapy in pediatric cancers.

Bosse says that choosing the correct immunotherapy for pediatric patients with solid tumors is a challenge. There are some immunotherapies in the pipeline being developed to target certain molecules in neuroblastoma, but finding targets has proven difficult.

As a result of the success of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, CD19 has become the gold standard, Bosse says. There are very few other molecules like that on pediatric cancers, posing a challenge in developing new cellular therapies and immunotherapeutics.

Cancers are very apt to developing resistance mechanisms to potent therapies by losing antigens or switching lineage, which can allow them to hide, Bosse explains. Combination therapies, or dual-targeting immunotherapeutics may be an approach to overcome this, he suggests.