# Treatment of metastatic melanoma with autologous CD4+ T cells against NY-ESO-1

Source: https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-hunder-cd4-ny-eso-1-melanoma-nejm-2008/  
OnCo record `paper-hunder-cd4-ny-eso-1-melanoma-nejm-2008` (Key paper). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

A case report of one person with melanoma that no treatment had controlled, who went into a lasting remission after an infusion of their own helper T cells grown against the NY-ESO-1 protein.

## Summary

The authors developed an in vitro method for isolating and expanding autologous CD4+ T-cell clones specific for the melanoma-associated antigen NY-ESO-1 and infused them into a patient with refractory metastatic melanoma who had had no prior conditioning or cytokine treatment (New England Journal of Medicine 2008). The transferred cells mediated a durable clinical remission and led to endogenous responses against melanoma antigens other than NY-ESO-1 (New England Journal of Medicine 2008).

## Fields

- Kind: Key paper
- Last checked: 2026-11-05
- Journal: The New England Journal of Medicine
- Year: 2008
- DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa0800251
- Authors: Hunder NN, Wallen H, Cao J, Hendricks DW, Reilly JZ, Rodmyre R, Jungbluth A, Gnjatic S, Thompson JA, Yee C.
- Findings: Autologous NY-ESO-1-specific CD4+ T-cell clones, given without conditioning or cytokines, produced a durable clinical remission in one patient with refractory metastatic melanoma.; The patient developed endogenous responses to melanoma antigens other than NY-ESO-1.
- What it means: Helper (CD4+) T cells, not only killer (CD8+) T cells, can drive a remission, and one targeted infusion can widen the immune response to other tumour antigens.
- Caveats: One patient; a case report, not a trial result.

## Sources

- DOI 10.1056/NEJMoa0800251: https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa0800251
- PubMed 18565862: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18565862/

## Connected records

- cancers: [Melanoma](https://onco.cc/cancers/melanoma/)
- targets: [CTAG1B](https://onco.cc/targets/ctag1b/)
- institutions: [Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center](https://onco.cc/institutions/fred-hutch/)
- terms: [Endogenous T-cell therapy](https://onco.cc/terms/endogenous-t-cell-therapy/)
- people: [Cassian Yee](https://onco.cc/people/cassian-yee/)
- journals: [New England Journal of Medicine](https://onco.cc/journals/nejm/)

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