Antiviral adoptive immunotherapy using antigen-specific T cells in allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients.

Adoptive immunotherapy using antiviral T cells (AVT) obtained from healthy donors is one of the advanced approaches considered as a breakthrough in the treatment of refractory and severe viral infections that often accompany primary immunodeficiencies or allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantations. The review describes nearly 30 years of the development of AVT to human cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus, human adenovirus, and human polyomavirus BK. The review introduces the basic methodological approaches to their production and summarizes the results from clinical studies that tested the safety and efficiency of the procedures used. Recent studies indicate that the treatment of viral infections by frozen AVT stored in banks could become a commonly available therapeutic modality.