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Immunotherapy of cancer with lymphokines and lymphokine-activated killer cells
1Department of Medicine, Hematology/Medical Oncology, University of Missouri, Columbia 65212.
Our expanding knowledge of the immune system has provided a basis of rationality for immunotherapy. Some non-specific immunotherapy has achieved the status of standard treatment: interferon in hairy cell leukemia and chronic myelogenous leukemia, BCG in bladder cancer, and levamisole in colon cancer adjuvant therapy. Tumor infiltrating lymphocytes, moreover, offer a level of specificity heretofore unknown. Combined with the newly available synthetic cytokines that regulate the normal immune system there is the potential for a major breakthrough in biotherapeutics. Problems remain. We have yet to identify tumor antigens with the precision necessary for effective immunotherapy. Indeed, we have no assurance that tumors will regularly synthesize new antigens. In the broad spectrum of immune deficiency syndromes, we have yet to see an increase in the common epithelial tumors that account for the great bulk of human cancer. This suggests that we still have a great deal more to learn.
Our expanding knowledge of the immune system has provided a basis of rationality for immunotherapy. Some non-specific immunotherapy has achieved the status of standard treatment: interferon in hairy cell leukemia and chronic myelogenous leukemia, BCG in bladder cancer, and levamisole in colon cancer adjuvant therapy. Tumor infiltrating lymphocytes, moreover, offer a level of specificity heretofore unknown. Combined with the newly available synthetic cytokines that regulate the normal immune system there is the potential for a major breakthrough in biotherapeutics. Problems remain. We have yet to identify tumor antigens with the precision necessary for effective immunotherapy. Indeed, we have no assurance that tumors will regularly synthesize new antigens. In the broad spectrum of immune deficiency syndromes, we have yet to see an increase in the common epithelial tumors that account for the great bulk of human cancer. This suggests that we still have a great deal more to learn.