Improvement of Impaired Immunological Status of Patients with Various Types of Advanced Cancers by Autologous Immune Cell Therapy

Kamigaki T1, Ibe H2, Okada S2, Matsuda E2, Tanaka M2, Oguma E2, Kinoshita Y2, Ogasawara S2, Ono A2, Makita K2, Naitoh K2, Goto S2.

Anticancer Res. 2015 Aug;35(8):4535-43.

Abstract

We evaluated the immunologicalstatus of patients with various solid tumors by flow cytometry of immunecell populations and their frequencies in peripheral blood samples. The change in immunologicalstatus was also analyzed in patients given autologousimmunecelltherapy, such as αβT cell, γδTcell, NK cell or DC vaccine therapy. The frequency of regulatory T-cells (Tregs) was shown to be high in patients with cancers of the lung (squamous carcinoma cells), head and neck, esophagus and uterus, although there were no significant differences in effector cell population or Th1/2 ratio between various types of cancers except for a few. The cellular immunologicalstatus was impaired in most patients with advanced solid tumors before immunecelltherapy and the impaired T-cellimmunestatus was restored by infusion of effector cells, such as αβT cells or γδT cells, although the number of NK cells in the peripheral blood did not always increase after autologous NK celltherapy. The concurrent αβT celltherapy and DC vaccine therapy could successfully increase the number of CD8(+) T-cells in the peripheral blood of patients with various types of cancers. Two or three injections of αβT cells could potentially reduce Tregs frequency prior to DC vaccine, as well as the concurrent αβT cell and DC vaccine therapy. However, an increase in the Tregs frequency was observed in some patients who received NK celltherapy. These findings suggest that it is necessary to include or combine certain types of immunecelltherapy when the Tregs frequency of cancer patients is high before or after autologousimmunecelltherapy.