***TASK*** the task is to summarize an input biomedical literature in six sentences 
    ***INPUT*** the input is a biomedical literature 
    ***OUTPUT*** the output is the summary of an input biomedical literature in six sentences 
    ***DOCUMENTATION*** 
    ***EXAMPLES*** 
    Input: The aim of this study was to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of erlotinib plus DC/CIK in maintenance therapy of advanced non – small cell lung cancer . After 4 cycles of the 2-drug regimen treatment with platinum , the 54 patients with non – small cell lung cancer in phase IIIb or IV reached stable or beyond stable stages . The patients were then r and omly divided into 2 groups . One group was treated with erlotinib therapy ( erlotinib group ) , and the other was treated with DC/CIK plus erlotinib ( DC/CIK plus erlotinib group ) . The progression-free survival of the erlotinib group and the DC/CIK plus erlotinib group was 3.98 months ( 95 % CI , 3.56–4.40 ) and 5.02 months ( 95 % CI , 4.32–5.72 ) ( P=0.002 ) , respectively . The median overall survival of the erlotinib group and the DC/CIK plus erlotinib group was 9.9 months ( 95 % CI , 9.1–10.6 ) and 10.5 months ( 95 % CI , 9.6–11.4 ) ( P=0.29 ) , respectively . The levels of CD3 + , CD4 + , and CD8 + were significantly different before and after the treatment in the DC/CIK plus erlotinib group , but not in the erlotinib group . There was no significant difference in toxicity between the 2 groups . In conclusion , there was no statistically significant difference in overall survival  between DC/CIK plus erlotinib and erlotinib as maintenance therapy . DC/CIK plus erlotinib was well tolerated with a manageable safety profile Purpose We conducted a phase III r and omized controlled trial ( RCT ) to investigate the efficacy of postsurgical adjuvant immunotherapy combined with chemotherapy . The immunotherapy targets were residual micrometastases and clones resistant to chemotherapy . Patients and methods Between April 2007 and July 2012 , 103 postsurgical non-small cell lung cancer patients were r and omly assigned to receive either chemo-immunotherapy ( group A ) or chemotherapy ( group B ) . The immunotherapy consisted of the adoptive transfer of autologous activated killer T cells and dendritic cells obtained from the lung cancer patients ’ own regional lymph nodes . Results The 2-year overall survival rates in groups A and B were 93.4 and 66.0 % , and the 5-year rates were 81.4 and 48.3 % , respectively . The differences were statistically significantly better in group A. The hazard ratio ( HR ) was 0.229 ( p = 0.0013 ) . The 2- and 5-year recurrence-free survival rates were 68.5 , 41.4 and 56.8 , 26.2 % in groups A and B , respectively . Those differences were also statistically significant ( log-rank test p = 0.0020 ) . The HR was 0.423 ( p = 0.0027 ) in favor of group A. As for adverse reactions to immunotherapy , of a total of 762 courses , 52 ( 6.8 % ) were accompanied with chills and shivering , and 47 ( 6.2 % ) , with fever ( > 38 ° C ) . Conclusions Immunotherapy has the potential to improve the postsurgical prognosis of lung cancer patients , but a large-scale multi-institutional RCT is awaited for further confirmation of this study BACKGROUND AIMS Cytokine-induced killer ( CIK ) cells have shown cytolytic activity against several tumor cells in vitro and in animal tumor models . Furthermore , CIK cells activated by dendritic cell ( DC ) stimulation show increased anti-tumor activity . This study aim ed to evaluate the clinical efficacy of DC-activated CIK cell treatment following regular chemotherapy and the effects of this therapy on immune responses in patients with non-small cell lung cancer ( NSCLC ) after surgery . METHODS A paired study , with 42 patients in each group with stage I-IIIa NSCLC after surgery , was performed . Patients received chemotherapy alone ( CT ) or chemotherapy and DC-activated CIK cell treatment ( immuno-CT ) .  Disease-free survival ( DFS ) and overall survival were evaluated . CIK  cell cytotoxicity against tumor cells was detected using a lactate dehydrogenase-based method . Serum cytokine levels in the immuno-CT group were detected using cytokine antibody arrays . RESULTS The cytotoxicity of CIK cells was significantly enhanced by DC activation . The 2-year overall survival rate in the immuno-CT group was significantly improved compared with the CT group ( 94.7 + /- 3.6 % versus 78.8 + /- 7.0 % , P < 0.05 ) . The 2-year DFS of these two groups showed no significant difference . DC-activated CIK cell treatment increased production of cytokines that have known anti-tumor effects , including IFN-gamma , MIG , TNF-alpha and TNF-beta , in patients who had no progression , but they were not found in patients who developed recurrence/metastasis . CONCLUSIONS This study suggests that the role of DC-activated CIK cells in improvement of chemotherapy for malignant tumor treatment is associated with up-regulation of the production of cytokines involved in the anti-tumor effect Purpose To clarify the long-term effect of immunotherapy , the effect of adoptive activated T lymphocyte immunotherapy on advanced lung cancer was evaluated in terms of survival time . In addition , the performance status of cancer patients under immunotherapy was examined . Experimental design Over 5 × 109 alpha – beta T lymphocytes cultured ex vivo with an immobilized anti-CD3 antibody and interleukin-2 were injected intravenously into patients , once every 2 weeks for 3 months or longer . Follow-up of these patients was carried out using clinical records and by telephone interview question naire . Patients undergoing immunotherapy in immunotherapy clinics and those undergoing other anticancer therapies without immunotherapy in seven hospitals in Tokyo were enrolled in this study . Data were analyzed by a third-party statistician . Performance status was studied on another series of various cancer patients who underwent immunotherapy .  Results The overall median survival time of the patients with the best supportive care , which was obtained using Kaplan – Meier ’s model , was 5.6 months , and those with immunotherapy alone , chemotherapy alone , and immuno-chemotherapy were 12.5 , 15.7 , and 20.8 months , respectively . Using Cox ’ proportional hazard model , we examined the possible factors on survival time by univariate analysis . Then , the patients were stratified by gender and histological type for multivariate analysis . Significantly low hazard ratios were observed for immunotherapy and radiotherapy in males with squamous cancer ; for chemotherapy and radiotherapy in male with adenocarcinoma ; and for immunotherapy in females with adenocarcinoma . Addition of immunotherapy to chemotherapy result ed in a statistically significant decrease in hazard ratio in females with adenocarcinoma . Studies on the performance status ( PS ) , determined according to the European Cooperative Oncology Group criteria , revealed a continuous high level of PS under immunotherapy until around 2 months before death , in contrast to the gradual increase of tumor marker level . Conclusions The effectiveness of immunotherapy on advanced lung cancer is limited but may extend life span under certain conditions . Immunotherapy itself provided no clinical benefit by itself as compared with chemotherapy , but a significant additive effect of immunotherapy on chemotherapy was observed in females with adenocarcinoma . Moreover , immunotherapy can maintain good quality of life of the patients until near the time of death The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of a gemcitabine plus platinum ( GP ) regimen combined with dendritic cell-cytokine induced killer ( DC-CIK ) immunotherapy on the recurrence and survival rate in patients with non-small cell lung cancer ( NSCLC ) . Patients ( n=157 ) with stage III NSCLC that had received surgery were r and omly divided into a control group and an observation group . The control group was administered with a GP regimen and the observation group received GP chemotherapy that was based on DC-CIK cell immunotherapy in addition to SC-CIK cell immunotherapy here . The two groups were followed up for 36 months and their postoperative cellular immune function , disease-free survival time , cumulative recurrence rate and cumulative survival rate was analyzed . The percentages of CD3+CD4 + T lymphocytes , natural killer cells and the CD4/CD8 ratio were identified to be significantly increased following treatment compared with those observed prior to treatment in the control and observation groups ; conversely , the CD3+CD8 + T lymphocyte percentage decreased significantly ( P<0.05 ) . Furthermore , the results of the patients in the observation group were significantly better compared with the control group based on these indicators ( P<0.05 ) . The median disease-free survival time of patients in the observation group ( 28 months ) was identified to be significantly longer than that of the control group ( 22 months ; P<0.05 ) , the three-year cumulative recurrence rate in the observation group ( 47.37 % ) was significantly lower than that of the control group ( 76.92 % ; P<0.05 ) and the three-year cumulative survival rate of the patients in the observation group ( 58.23 % ) was significantly higher than that of the control group patients ( 37.14 % ; P<0.05 ) . In conclusion , the GP regimen combined with DC-CIK immunotherapy significantly improved the immune cell function in the postoperative NSCLC patients , in addition to reducing postoperative tumor recurrence and prolonging the survival time of patients with NSCLC Dendritic cells ( DC ) play a crucial role in the induction of an effective antitumor immune response . Cytokine-induced killer ( CIK ) cells , a subset of T lymphocytes , have the capacity to eliminate cancer cells . This study was to evaluate the correlation between the frequency of DC/CIK immunotherapies following regular chemotherapy , the time-to-progression ( TTP ) , and overall survival ( OS ) of advanced non-small lung cancer patients . Sixty patients with IIIB – IV non-small-cell lung carcinoma ( NSCLC ) were enrolled from August 2007 to December 2009 and were r and omized into two groups . All 60 patients received four courses of navelbine – platinum ( NP ) chemotherapy . In one group , 30 patients were treated with adoptive autologous DC/CIK cell transfusion twice every 30 days . In the other group , the patients received immunotherapies more than twice every 30 days . The adverse effects , TTP , and OS were evaluated between the two groups . Median survival time of all 60 patients was 13.80 months . The 1- , 2- , and 3-year overall survival rates were 60.0 , 21.7 , and 15.0 % , respectively . The 1- , 2- , and 3-year overall survival rates of patients receiving more than two immunotherapies were 63.3 , 30.0 , and 23.3 % , and the rates of those receiving two immunotherapies were 56.7 , 13.3 , and 6.7 % , respectively . The difference between the two groups was statistically significant ( P = 0.037 ) . Compared with patients in the fewer immunotherapies group , TTP in the group receiving more immunotherapies significantly prolonged , with the median improving from 6.2 months ( 95 % CI , 5.35–9.24 ) to 7.3 months ( 95 % CI , 5.45–6.95 ; P = 0.034 ) . The adverse effects of chemoimmunotherapy were tolerable . Advanced NSCLC patients can benefit from the combination of DC/CIK immunotherapies following conventional chemotherapy . More than two immunotherapies improved TTP and OS of those patients in this study Cytokine-induced killer ( CIK ) cells show cytolytic activity against tumor . The purpose of this study was to evaluate the antitumor effect of dendritic cell (DC)-activated CIK cells in vitro and their clinical efficacy of DC-activated CIK cells in combination with chemotherapy ( abbreviated below as chemotherapy plus DC + CIK ) in patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer ( NSCLC ) . A paired study was performed between 61 patients treated with chemotherapy alone ( group 1 ) and 61 patients treated with chemotherapy plus DC + CIK cells ( group 2 ) . In group 2 , 36 patients with adenocarcinoma and 18 patients with squamous cell carcinoma were analyzed for the survival rate .  Compared to unstimulated CIK cells , DC-activated CIK cells significantly enhanced antitumor activity , increased the ratio of CD3+CD56 + cells , promoted cell proliferation and lessened cell apoptosis . In the paired study , the 1- and 2-year overall survival rates in group 2 were 57.2 and 27.0 % , which were significantly higher than that of group 1 ( 37.3 and 10.1 % ) ( P < 0.05 ) . There was no significant difference in the survival rate between the adenocarcinoma and squamous carcinoma patients in group 2 . The present study suggests that DC-activated CIK cell has enhanced antitumor effects and chemotherapy plus DC + CIK cells improved the clinical outcomes of chemotherapy for advanced NSCLC patients A r and omized controlled study of immunotherapy with interleukin 2 ( IL-2 ) and lymphokine-activated killer ( LAK ) cells was conducted in 105 patients after 
    Output:
    
The subgroup analysis showed that DC/CIK did more benefit to NSCLC patients  than LAK and the cycles not associated with AIT efficacy .
AIT can significantly improve the OS and PFS with acceptable toxicity for NSCLC .