Genetically Modified T-cell Therapy for the Treatment of Osteosarcoma: An Update

While patients with localized osteosarcoma have excellent survival rates, the prognosis for those with advanced disease is significantly worse despite aggressive multimodality therapies [1]. To overcome these limitations novel treatments are needed, especially for children and young adults with metastatic and/or recurrent osteosarcoma, whose poor rates of survival have remained relatively unchanged for decades. Immunotherapy with genetically modified T cells (Figure 1) offers a promising alternative to conventional cytotoxic chemotherapies because T-cell killing does not rely on mechanisms employed by these cytotoxic agents [2,3].