| Budget Amount *help |
¥1,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000)
Fiscal Year 2000: ¥1,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000)
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| Research Abstract |
Recently, vaccination therapy with dendritic cells (DC) was widely applied for cancer patients, and its effectiveness was demonstrated in some cases of malignant melanoma, malignant lymphoma (B cell type), renal cancer, prostatic cancer, lung and colon cancer. However, this therapy has not been established in children, yet. It is well known that the prognosis of malignant tumor, especially sarcoma in children is very poor. We have treated terminal stage of patients, 9-year-old girl with rhabdomyosarcoma and 15-year-old girl with synovial sarcoma by vaccination with tumor lysate and dendritic cells. 300ml of peripheral blood was drawn from the patients. 20 ml buffy coat was taken from them and the remaining was returned to the patient, using apheresis bag. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells were isolated by Ficoll gradient separation, and divided into two populations, plastic non-adherent and adherent cells. The former cells were cultured with AIM-V medium containing10% human serum for 36 h in the presence of tumor lysate. DC were isolated by metrizamide gradient separation method, and injected into a patient with PPD pulsed monocytes and rIL-2. The latter cells were cultured with rGM-CSF and rIL-4 in the presence of tumor lysate for 7days. Monocyte derived DC were harvested and injected into a patient with rIL-2. This therapy was done every 2-4 weeks interval. Results : Vaccination therapy didn't affect on the clinical course of rhabdomyosarcoma patient at all. On the other hand, it showed partial response in the patient with synovial sarcoma, demonstrating the disappearance of pleural effusion and cough. New metastatic tumors were not detected for nearly 1 year after immunotherapy, although only one lung tumor was still growing slowly. She lives her usual daily life without difficulties. Vaccination therapy may be effective on the prevention of metastasis in an early stage of synovial sarcoma.
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