The monocyte tumor necrosis factor-alpha production in patients with acute leukemia in complete remission

Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) production by unstimulated and lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated peripheral monocytes has been studied in 17 acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients, 54 AML patients in complete remission (AML-CR), 9 acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients and 13 ALL patients in complete remission (ALL-CR). TNF-alpha production by the unstimulated monocytes in ALL patients (n = 6, mean: 6.6 +/- 4.9 u/ml) was higher than that of normal controls (n = 13, 0.9 +/- 0.7 u/ml), AML patients (n = 14, 2.0 +/- 2.1 u/ml) and AML-CR patients (n = 21, 1.4 +/- 1.2 u/ml). TNF-alpha production by the LPS-stimulated monocytes of the AML-CR patients (n = 54, 12.4 +/- 13.4 u/ml) was significantly higher than that of the normal controls (n = 21, 3.5 +/- 2.5 u/ml) and the AML patients (n = 17, 2.6 +/- 2.4 u/ml), p < 0.01, but there were not any significant differences among the AML-CR patients and the ALL patients or the ALL-CR patients. We separated the AML-CR patients into 3 groups, depending on the length of their remission, and found that AML-CR patients with longer than 6 months (M) but less than 60 M (n = 21, 15.7 +/- 16.9 u/ml) and the patients with a remission longer than 60 M (n = 11, 18.2 +/- 15.9 u/ml) had significantly higher TNF-alpha production than that of the controls.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)