1990 Volume 36 Issue 7 Pages 1720-1729
Adoptive immunotherapy is a treatment approach in which lymphokine-activated killer (LAK) cells with antitumor reactivity and interleukin-2 (IL-2) are administrated to a tumor-bearing host. It has been shown that the incubation of human peripheral blood lymphocytes with IL-2 generates LAK cells that can lyse natural killer (NK) cell resistant, or fresh, autologous tumor cells but not normal cells. Adoptive immunotherapy has therapeutic benefit for advanced or metastatic cancer patients whose treatments are difficult. Two patients with adenoid cystic carcinomas of maxillary sinus and another two with squamous cell carcinomas of upper alveolus and gingiva were treated by local adoptive immunotherapy using intra-arterial infusion in combination with radiotherapy. In this study, the therapeutic effect of this combined therapy and changes of patient's immunoparameters are reported.
Patients were treated by radiotherapy (60Co: 2 Gy per day) for five days. Thereafter, each patient received recombinant IL-2 (rIL-2; 5×105 units per day) as constant infusion and intermittent administration of LAK cells (5×106 to 107 cells: 1 to 2 times per week) using intra-arterial infusion into superficial temporal artery. LAK cells were generated by in vitro incubation of patient's peripheral blood mononuculear cells in presence of 1, 000 units per ml of IL-2 for 3 to 4 days. The total amounts of IL-2 and LAK cells were 2.1 to 2.7×107 units and 1.8 to 4.5×106 cells, respectively. The total doses of irradiation ranged from 40 to 80 Gy.
As a result of this treatment, complete responses were observed in all treated patients. There was no side effect due to this treatment.
In the study of the surface markers of the peripheral blood lymphocytes, it was found that the percentage of Leull positive cells markedly incresed during and after the treatment as compared with that determined before the therapy. A significant increase of the percentage of OKM1 or Leu 7 positive cells after the treatment was also observed, sugesting that NK cells containing OKM1, Leu 7 or Leull may be induced by this therapy, whereas NK or LAK activity of peripheral blood lymphocytes did not show a significant increase.
In conclusion, the treatment with local adoptive immunotherapy in combination with radiotherapy was effective therapy for head and neck cancer patients.
