Tumor-Produced IL-6 Possible Vaccine Candidate For Immune-Compromised Patients.(Brief Article)

2001 APR 4 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) --

by N.R. Saltmarsh, staff medical writer - A pancreatic cancer cell line producing interleukin 6 (IL-6) may one day be used to vaccinate immune-compromised patients against metastasis.

T. Yano and colleagues at Hokkaido University previously found that tumor-derived IL-6 prevented pancreatic cancer from metastasizing to the liver. In this study they examined its possible vaccination effect in T-cell-deficient nude mice.

Their results, published in the Japanese Journal of Cancer Research, indicate that the IL-6 vaccine may also suppress tumors in immune-compromised humans.

Yano and team inoculated the mice with a pancreatic cancer cell line that produced IL-6 (PCI-43h) and one that did not (PCI-43).

They noted that anti-PCI antibody levels peaked at 28 days and remained high thereafter ("Vaccination effect of interleukin-6-producing pancreatic cancer cells in nude mice: A model of tumor prevention and treatment in immune-compromised patients," Jpn J Cancer Res, 2001;92(1):83-87).

"Inoculation of PCI-43h but not PCI-43 suppressed growth of simultaneously inoculated PCI-43, but not PCI-24 xenografts," reported Yano et al. "In addition, administration ...