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- • There are an increasing number of interleukins , several of which are now being tested on humans. Other
- combinations include interferons and interleukins together or in sequence.
- • High-dose chemotherapy , with single drugs or in combinations, followed by autologous bone marrow
- transplantation, has had too many dangerous side effects associated with the drugs in current trials and too
- short a duration of response. The general approach, however, is very promising. Even now the rate of
- response is in the order of 60 percent.
- • Several groups, including one at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, MD, have begun investigating
- immunotherapy with tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) or cloned killer and helper T cells . This form of
- "adoptive" immunotherapy involves removing blood cells from the patient, stimulating and multiplying them,
- then returning them, usually with IL-2 . Insertion of genes for cytokines, such as IL-2, TNF or GM-CSF, into
- irradiated tumor cells (for vaccines) or T cells (for adoptive immunotherapy) is being tried to make vaccines
- more effective or to increase the number and life-span of the transferred T cells in the body. This "gene
- therapy," particularly as applied to tumor vaccines, may be a way of boosting the immune system beyond
- what the weak tumor antigens can do by themselves. Whether it is better than current methods of boosting
- immunity with less glamorous approaches, such as by mixing vaccines with bacterial substances, remains to be
- seen.
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