Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocyte Therapy

A leader in innovative cancer care, Montefiore Einstein Comprehensive Cancer Center is among the first academic medical centers in the New York Metropolitan Area to offer tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved this cellular immunotherapy for people with advanced melanoma who are experiencing little or no clinical improvement with standard therapies.

Tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy involves building up, concentrating and reintroducing your immune system’s naturally occurring cancer-fighting cells to fight the melanoma.

The first task in this multi-step process is to remove some of the tissue from your melanoma tumor and extract the cancer-fighting T-cells, called lymphocytes, that have entered the tumor. These socalled “tumor- infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs)” already recognize your specific cancer.

The next step is to produce many more of these specialized cancer-fighting cells. To do this, we isolate the TILs from the rest of the tumor tissue, multiply the cells many times over and then
activate them.

To prepare your body to use the TILs most effectively, we give you a type of therapy that first weakens your immune system so that your body will accept the TILs, similar to what’s given to bone marrow transplant patients. We then return the TILs to your body through a one-time intravenous (IV) infusion.

Tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy enables your immune system to find, target and eliminate
melanoma cancer cells in most any part of the body, including areas that surgery can’t reach. It can help people who have melanoma that has spread throughout the body when standard treatments are not effective.

In clinical trials, approximately one-third of patients who received TIL therapy had meaningfully
significant tumor responses, with most of these patients remaining in response for over 3 years after treatment was finished.

Tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy is for people with advanced melanoma who haven’t gotten better (shown clinical improvement) with standard treatment approaches, or whose melanoma tumor has spread to other parts of the body.

Once TILs are harvested from your tumor—typically as part of an in-office procedure—you will be scheduled for a visit several weeks later. The time gap allows the extracted cells to reproduce in high numbers. When the cells have successfully multiplied, you will receive several days of therapy to weaken and quiet your immune system so that your body accepts the TIL cells when they are reinfused and primed to destroy the melanoma tumor cells.

You can expect to be in the hospital for at least two weeks to prepare for, receive and adjust to the TIL infusion.

While TIL therapy requires specialized laboratory facilities and coordination only available at major academic centers like Montefiore Einstein Comprehensive Cancer Center, we will work with your oncologist to find the best approach for your situation. For example, some patients come to our comprehensive cancer center for the TIL extraction surgery and reinfusion and return to their personal oncologist for follow-up care.