Clinical application of adoptive immunotherapy and IL-2 for the treatment of advanced digestive tract cancer.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: We investigated the clinical efficacy of systemic and locoregional adoptive immunotherapy (AIT) with or without interleukin-2 (IL-2) against solid metastatic lesions from digestive tract cancer, which are refractory to conventional chemotherapy or radiotherapy. METHODOLOGY: Seven of 18 patients received hepatic arterial infusion (HAI) of lymphokine-activated killer (LAK) cells with or without IL-2 against metastatic liver tumors (local therapy group). The remaining 11 patients received systemic transfer of LAK cells with IL-2 against metastatic lesions located in organs other than the liver (systemic therapy group). RESULTS: Three of the 7 local therapy group patients showed clinically significant tumor regressions and this was evaluated as being equivalent to partial response (PR) (response rate: 43%). Two of the 11 systemic therapy group patients showed tumor regression which was evaluated as being equivalent to either complete response (CR) or PR (response rate: 18%). These 2 effective cases in the systemic therapy group were esophageal cancer patients. CONCLUSIONS: Locoregional AIT with or without IL-2 against liver metastases of digestive tract cancer could be an effective therapeutic modality in some patients who are refractory to conventional therapies. However, clinical efficacy of systemic AIT with IL-2 against metastases of digestive tract cancer would not be an effective modality except for the metastases of esophageal cancer.