Osteogenic sarcoma. Immunologic parameters before and during immunotherapy with tumor-specific transfer factor.

Abstract

A B S T R A C T 18 patients with osteogenic sarcoma were followed by serial measurements in vitro of tumorspecific cell-mediated cytotoxicity and of "active" and total rosette-forming T-cells. 13 of these patients have had or are currently receiving injections of osteogenic sarcoma-specific dialyzable transfer factor derived from healthy donors. In three patients with very small lesions, cytotoxicity was high before amputation and decreased within 2 mo after removal of tumor. Cytotoxicity was low at time of diagnosis in all patients with large tumor masses. The cytotoxicity of the patients' lymphocytes increased after administration of tumor-specific transfer factor in all patients so treated. Patients receiving nonspecific transfer factor showed evidence of declining cell-mediated cytotoxicity.Tumor-specific transfer factor may produce an increase in cell-mediated cytotoxicity to the tumor in patients with osteogenic sarcoma. This possibility is suggested by the pain and edema that occurred in the area of the tumor in patients who had metastatic disease when therapy was started and by lymphocytic infiltrates in the tumor, as well as by the increase in cell-mediated cytotoxicity and the increase in percentage of active rosette-forming cells from subnormal to normal. Serial measurements of cell-mediated cytotoxicity are helpful in monitoring the efficacy of transfer factor and other modes of therapy in these patients, and these measurements are the best available criteria for selection of donors of tumor-specific transfer factor.

Tumor-specific cell-mediated immunity in household contacts of cancer patients..

“…Osteogenic sarcoma patients demonstrated a complex pattern of immunity more fully described in another paper (21). Tumor-specific immunity was found in patients with small tumors immediately before and after amputation of the tumors and it was gradually lost after the antigenic mass was removed.…”

“…Similar specificity was seen in the other two patients tested. These reactions are discussed in another paper (21 15.6). Therefore, any CI on this cell line above 53% (2 SD above the mean) was considered above the normal range and indicative of tumor-specific cellular immunity against this cell line.…”

“…It is interesting that transfer factor made from leukocytes that demonstrate activity by the chromium-51 release assay is capable of transferring cell-mediated immunity from donor to patient (21). This suggests that this factor may be found in the T-2 population.…”

Stimulation of monocyte cGMP by leukocyte dialysates. An antigen-independent property of dialyzable transfer factor.

“…After receiving transfer factor, anergic patients with chronic mucocutaneous candidiasis (1), coccidioidomycosis (2), or the Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome (3) developed positive delayed cutaneous hypersensitivity responses, and in some cases their lymphocytes responded to antigenic stimulation in vitro with lymphokine production (1)(2)(3). Others have reported that after administration of transfer factor from specificially reactive donors, patients with osteogenic sarcoma developed cell-mediated cytotoxicity (4), and that lymphocytes from a patient with alveolar softpart sarcoma responded in vitro to an extract of the tumor with production of migration inhibitory factor (5).…”

In vitro production of a transfer factor specific for transitional-cell carcinoma of the bladder

“…Since TFd has already been successfully used for therapy of cancer patients (for recent reviews see Lo Buglio and Neidhart, 1974;Levin et al, 1975;Lawrence, 1974), it is plausible to suppose that in the near future it will be advantageously replaced by TFdL as the latter proved the transfer of sensitivity to tumour cells in vitro (Pizza et al, 1975). Indeed, the main restriction of TFd therapy is obtaining large quantities of a TFd with known activity.…”