[Adjuvant therapy of liver metastases: active specific immunotherapy]

The theoretical basis for Active Specific Immunotherapy (ASI) has been worked out during the last 15 years. On this basis an improvement of the quality of the tumour vaccine could be achieved. Thus we are able to produce a very pure preparation of viable autologous tumour cells needing only small pieces of the original tumour. In animal experiments the used NDV (Newcastle-Disease-Virus)-tumour cell vaccine induced a high antitumour immunity. Side effects of this NDV-tumour vaccine are rare in contrast to BCG admixed tumour vaccines. Concerning the effectiveness of ASI only one randomized clinical study has been published [Hoover 17, 18]. The results of our phase 11 study show excellent 2 year survival rates using the NDV-tumour vaccine as an adjuvant for colorectal cancer patients: Dukes B 100% (95.5%-100%), Dukes C 95.0% (90.1%-99.9%). In future a randomized study of adjuvant ASI-treatment for these patients with a comparison to adjuvant chemotherapy should be performed. In R0-resected liver metastases a randomized study of ASI is ongoing.