PROGNOSTIC VALUE OF THE IMMUNOMONITORING OF PATIENTS WITH RENAL-CELL CARCINOMA UNDER THERAPY WITH IL-2 IFN-ALPHA-2 IN COMBINATION WITH 5-FU/

After tumor nephrectomy, patients suffering from metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC) received interleukin-2 (IL-2), interferon (IFN)-alpha -2b and 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) in one to three treatment cycles over 8 weeks. Using flow cytometry, we investigated the immunophenotype of pe ripheral blood lymphocytes from 22 patients during therapy. In all pat ients, we found an increase in the absolute number of T lymphocytes, e specially of the CD4 type, and in the number of HLA-DR(+), CD25(+) T c ells and natural killer (NK) cells. The mean number of B cells did not increase during therapy. The numbers of CD4(+), CD8(+) and CD25(+) T cells correlated significantly with the clinical response. In addition , we found that the pretherapeutic number of T lymphocytes and B cells but not of NK cells was significantly higher in patients with a thera py-induced clinical response. In conclusion, we describe the predictiv e value of the number of lymphocytes from peripheral blood for the eff iciency of IL-2/IFN-alpha-2b therapy in combination with 5-FU in patie nts with metastatic renal cell carcinoma.