The ideal cancer treatment modality should not only cause tumor regression
and eradication but also induce a systemic antitumor immunity, which is ess
ential for control of metastatic tumors and for long-term tumor resistance.
Laser immunotherapy using a laser, a laser-absorbing dye, and an immunoadj
uvant has induced such long-term immunity in treatment of a mammary metasta
tic tumor. The successfully treated rats established total resistance to mu
ltiple subsequent tumor challenges, To further study the mechanisms of the
antitumor immunity induced by this novel treatment modality, passive adopti
ve transfer was performed using splenocytes as immune cells. The spleen cel
ls that were harvested from successfully treated tumor-bearing rats provide
d 100% immunity in the naive recipients. The passively protected first coho
rt rats were immune to tumor challenge with an increased tumor dose; their
splenocytes also prevented the establishment of tumor in the second cohort
of naive recipient rats, This immunity transfer was accomplished without th
e usually required T-cell suppression in recipients.