Immunotoxins for central nervous system malignancy

Current therapy for primary brain tumors, metastatic brain tumors and leptomeningeal carcinomatosus is inadequate. Monoclonal antibodies and certain biological ligands such as transferrin and epidermal growth factor bind selectively to tumors but in and of themselves have little therapeutic activity. Linking these binding moieties to protein toxins yields new molecules, called immunotoxins, that display enormous cell-type specific toxicity in vitro and could be valuable agents for treatment of CNS cancer. This review discusses our development of immunotoxins to treat brain tumors after systemic, intrathecal and intratumoral injection.