Ji Yang,1,* Zhenyu Ding,2,* Ying Yu,1 Junde Liu,1 Shuang Song,1 Zhendong Zheng,2 Huiying Yu1 

1Basic Medicine Laboratory, General Hospital of Northern Theater Command, Shenyang, 110016, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Clinical Oncology, General Hospital of Northern Theater Command, Shenyang, 110016, People’s Republic of China

*These authors contributed equally to this work

Correspondence: Huiying Yu, Basic Medicine Laboratory, General Hospital of Northern Theater Command, Shenyang, 110016, People’s Republic of China, Email hyingy@sina.com Zhendong Zheng, Department of Clinical Oncology, General Hospital of Northern Theater Command, Shenyang, 110016, People’s Republic of China, Email gcp_zzd@sian.com

Objective: Colorectal carcinoma (CRC) is the third most common malignancy. In addition to comprehensive cancer treatments, such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy, the adoptive immune cell therapy (ACT) has played an increasingly important role in recent years, and the adaptive transfusion of autologous NK cells and CIK cells is a brand-new approach to cellular therapy for solid tumors.
Case Presentation: A 57-year-old man underwent a radical resection of microsatellite stable (MSS) rectal cancer with synchronous liver metastases. After surgery of the primary lesion surgery, he was treated with autologous CIK/NK cells combined with XELOX translational therapy. Each cycle can obtain over 10 × 109 CIK cells or over 6 × 109 NK cells combined chemotherapy of XELOX every 3 weeks. After 2 cycles of therapy, he achieved partial response (PR). He immediately underwent a hepatic metastasis resection. After surgery, the patient continued to receive autologous CIK/NK cells in combined with 4 cycles of XELOX. To date, he has achieved and maintained no evidence of disease (NED) for over 40 months.
Conclusion: This is a case of successful treatment of rectal cancer with liver metastasis using ACT in conjunction with first-line chemotherapy. The advantage of this treatment plan is that it has few side effects and achieves long-term control of tumor recurrence by improving the patient’s immune function. However, its responsiveness and benefit rate still need further investigation.

Keywords: autologous CIK cells, autologous NK cells, chemotherapy, advanced rectal cancer