Clinical experience of EET therapy for 75 advanced cancer patients

Background: Exogenous/endogenous TNF (EET) therapy has a strong effect whic h causes inflammation in the body. Together with the antitumor effect of a single administration the complementary effect of immunotherapy based on sp ecific immunostimulation of tumor cells is also expected. We studied the ch aracteristics of EET therapy in cases of advanced cancer. Patients and meth ods: The patients were 75 cases with advanced cancer including 48 cases of colon cancer, 10 cases of urological cancer, and 9 cases of gynecological c ancel: One course of therapy was composed of the intravenous administration of either IFN-gamma or TNF-S-AM2 followed 3 hours later by OK-432. At leas t 2 courses were repeated during a 2 weeks period Results: As response case s, partial response (PR) was observed in 7 of the 42 cases of colon cancer (17%) which had an evaluable lesion. Objective responses of lung metastases were found in the patients with multiple organ metastases of cervical canc er, ovarian cancer and uterine rhabdomyosarcoma. The group of colorectal ca ncer patients with liver metastases which underwent more than 5 courses of the therapy showed a longer survival period compared to the cona ol group. One of the side effects transitory hypotension was observed in 46 % of the cases. Conclusion: In spite of restricted objective responses to date with EET therapy alone, anticancer effects observed in various kinds of tumors a nd activation of a cytokine network by which Th1 cells might be specificall y activated suggest that a new biotherapy based on EET therapy may have pot ential.