[Clinical evaluation of local administration of RIL-2 in head and neck cancer]

Recombinant Interleukin-2 (rIL-2) was administered locally to 20 patients with head and neck cancer. 800 thousand units of TGP-3 were injected around the tumor mass every day for about 4 weeks. Complete response (CR) was obtained in two cases with lip cancer and one with lingual cancer showed partial response (PR), and minor response (MR) in oral floor cancer. No recurrence of tumors was observed in the two cases of lip cancer. Chemotherapy was performed with rIL-2 in cases responding only insufficiently to rIL-2. It was interesting that arterial infusion of anticancer drugs subsequent to local administration of rIL-2 resulted in a dramatic decrease in tumor size in a short time. It is suggested that local administration of rIL-2 may play an important role in multimodal treatment for head and neck cancer.