抄録
Fifty-five patients with cancer of the head and neck were treated in the Oto-rhinolaryngology Department of Keio University in the period between Oct., 1974 and Dec., 1977. These patients were divided into the immunotherapy group, where immune activators (OK-432, PS-K, SSM) were long administered after radical treatment of cancer, and the control group, and immunotherapy was analyzed in the light of clinical progresses and immunologic parameters. Findings that served as immunologic parameters were CH50, PPD response and peripheral blood lymphocyte count. Administration of immunologic activators was aimed at reduction in size of tumor or arrest of its growth in the non-radical therapy group, and prevention of recurrence and metastasis in the radical therapy group.
The results were as follows:
1. OK-432, PS-K or SSM had no tumor-reducing effect in the non-radical therapy group (cancer-bearing patients).
2. Immunologic findings suggest that OK-432, PS-K and SSM have prophylactic effects against recurrence and metastasis.
3. The immunologic response of cancer in vivo is not always advantageous to the body. Administration of immune activators may not, therefore, be indicated in some cases. Further studies are necessary in this respect.
4. To enhance the effect for tumor shrinkage and prevention of recurrence or metastasis, immunochemotherapy requires further study.
