Four cases of oral cancer treated with adoptive immunotherapy (LAK therapy) and radiotherapy

This report describes four cases of oral cancer treated with immunotherapy using lymphokine activated killer (LAK) cells and radiotherapy. In this study, the cytotoxicity and surface phenotype of induced LAK cells were analyzed. Peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBLs) were also analyzed before and after LAK cell infusion into oral cancer patients. Furthermore, the change of the affected part of the tumor using immunohistochemical procedure was observed. PBLs were obtained from oral cancer patients and induced to LAK cells by rIL-2 (Shionogi Pharmaceutical Co, Ltd, 700JRU/ml) and anti-CD3 moAb (25ng/ml) by culturing for 17 to 24 days. Infusions into regional artery of the tumor in patients were 8-fold divided LAK cells obtained by culturing twice, each infusion interval was 2 to 3 days, and 6.2-17×109 LAK cells were infused into each patient. The cytotoxicity was determined in a 4-hour 51Cr release assay and was determined by K-562 cells (E/T=5/1) . Phenotypic characterization was determined by dichromatic flow cytometry using several monoclonal antibodied. The determined cells were LAK cells and PBLs before and after infusion of LAK cells into oral cancer patients. As for results, cytotoxicity of the mean of LAK cells was 74.6%. Cytotoxicity of PBLs between before and after infusion of LAK cells showed the tendency to decrease in in vitro determination. As for phenotypic characterization, CD8+/CD11- cells and CD3+/HLA-DR+ cells were increased with the mean of LAK cells. CD4+ cells were increased, CD8+/CD11-cells, CD3+/HLA-DR+ cells, and CD8+/CD11+ were decreased with the mean of PBLs between before and after infusion of LAK cells. After infusion of LAK cells, infiltration of UCHL-1+ cells and HLA-DR+ cells were increased markedly around the tumor in case 1.