[Adoptive immunotherapy in malignant tumors]

Presently, the biotherapy for cancer, involving activated cells of the immune system has been used on an expanding basis in clinical oncology. The stimulated recombinant preparations of interleukin-2 (IL-2) and of interferon on (INF), or so-called lymphoquin-activated killers (LAK), were found to be able to lyse the freely isolated tumor cells by avoiding any damage to the normal cells. An NCI randomized study (181 cases), held in 1990, showed that the combination of IL-2 with LAK was most effective as compared with the IL-2 therapy alone. Despite the fact that the immunotherapy basic research is focused on melanoma, renal cancer, colorectal cancer and lymphomas, there are published data related with an effective use of IL-2/LAK-therapy in patients with other localizations. The administration of IL-2 and LAK for exudative cancer forms in 78 patients led to clinical effects in 94.8% of cases. A maximum cytoreduction of tumor is one more way to enhance the efficacy of the immunotherapy; it ensures the establishment of a maximum correlation between the tumor cells and the killers. A combination of the methods of activation of specific and non-specific immunities should be regarded as the most promising trend in the development of biotherapy of tumors.