Therapeutic potential of dendritic cell vaccines in sarcoma of the extremities

Sarcomas of the extremities are challenging to treat. They are divided into soft-tissue and bone sarcomas in general, which also have many subtypes, based on their different mesenchymal origins and anatomical locations, respectively. Each of these sarcomas present in different ways, exhibit different behaviors and prognoses, and present unique therapeutic challenges. Dendritic cells (DCs) are the best professional antigen-presenting cells that can induce both the generation and proliferation of specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes and helper T lymphocytes through antigen presentation by MHC class I and class II molecules, respectively. In this review, a series of recently conducted immunotherapy for extremital sarcomas based on DCs are summarized and the potential for therapeutic DC vaccination targeted against these tumors is assessed.