Influence of cytokine-induced killer cell treatment on diease-free suvival of gastric cancer patients

Objective To study the related factors of autologous cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cell treatment in vitro and the disease-free suvival of gastric cancer patients.Methods Gastric cancer patients were treated with autologous cytokine-induced killer cells in vitro by biotechnology.181 cases of gastric cancer after surgical treatment and pathological diagnosis in the third affiliated hospital of Soochow University between January 1,1998 and December 31,2009 were selected in this study.The clinical efficacy of chemotherapy in combination with CIK biotherapy ( CIK treatment group) on the disease-free survival of gastric cancer patients compared to the chemotherapy alone (chemotherapy group) was evaluated by Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and Log-rank test.Results The difference was not statistically significant in sex,age,tumor location,tumor size,histological types,invasion depth,lymph node metastasis or pathological grade.The disease-free median survival time of gastric cancer patients was significantly longer in the CIK treatment group than in the chemotherapy group (x2 =9.722,P ＜0.01 ),and there was a positive correlation between the survival time and the times of CIK cell treatment (x2 =14.769,P ＜ 0.01 ).Conclusion CIK cell treatment can significantly prolong the median survival time of gastric cancer patients. Key words: Gastric carcinoma;  Cytokine;  Induced killer cells;  Survival time