Adoptive immunotherapy with tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) has been challenged to human
cancer patients during these years. However, as the efficacy of the
therapy alone is still limited, another approach, a combination with other
therapies may be required to obtain more favorable antitumor effects.
Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF) is worth considering for combination, because at least its various potential roles in immune response suggest that it might increase the killing activity of T cells against autologous
tumor cells. We attempted to treat the
cancer patients with TIL combined with TNF
therapy. A patient with recurrent
cervical cancer was treated with multiple
biological therapies including TIL and TNF
therapy, and irradiation.
Biological therapies consisted of endogenous and exogenous TNF (EET)
therapy, TIL, administration of rTNF-SAM2 combined with
hyperthermia and several
biological response modifiers such as
schizophyllan and
lentinan. After 50 days of
therapy, the recurrent
tumor had remarkably decreased in size, and cystic change of the
tumor was observed by CT scanning. By further continuation of these
therapies, the disease condition was much improved. As these antitumor effects cannot well be explained by irradiation
therapy alone, multiple
biological therapies are considered to be potentially effective against the highly malignant advanced
tumors.