Immunotherapy with Monoclonal Antibodies for Acute Myeloid Leukemia: A Work in Progress

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Immune based treatments (ITs) represent one of the most important strategies in the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), like allogeneic stem cell transplant. Recently, several strategies have been explored: monoclonal antibodies (immunoconjugates or not, checkpoint inhibitors), bispecific antibodies (BiTE), vaccination, and chimeric antigen-receptor (CAR) T cells. This review will mainly focus on check-point inhibitors and BiTE, despite none of these being currently approved for patients with AML. The reasons for the struggle in the application of these drugs will be analyzed. ABSTRACT: In the last few years, molecularly targeted agents and immune-based treatments (ITs) have significantly changed the landscape of anti-cancer therapy. Indeed, ITs have been proven to be very effective when used against metastatic solid tumors, for which outcomes are extremely poor when using standard approaches. Such a scenario has only been partially reproduced in hematologic malignancies. In the context of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), as innovative drugs are eagerly awaited in the relapsed/refractory setting, different ITs have been explored, but the results are still unsatisfactory. In this work, we will discuss the most important clinical studies to date that adopt ITs in AML, providing the basis to understand how this approach, although still in its infancy, may represent a promising therapeutic tool for the future treatment of AML patients.