STUDY ON CYTOKINE PRODUCTION IN GYNECOLOGICAL CANCER

Aggressive polychemotherapy and ultra-radical surgery had had only small benefits for patients with gynaecological cancer in recent years. That is why we measured cytokines in these patients to evaluate a possible future immune therapy. To investigate the influence of gynaecological cancer on in vitro and in vivo cytokine production of peripheral mononuclear cells (PBMC) from 27 patients with mamma carcinoma and 29 patients with cervical cancer, we evaluated the production of interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha), interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) and tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha). We compared the immune function of these patients versus 20 patients who had had routine hysterectomies performed for non-malignant reasons and 20 healthy female controls. Blood for cytokine production was collected prior to surgery, for IFN-alpha-production two weeks after surgery and for all cytokines three months after surgery. Measurement of TFN-alpha-production did not differ significantly in all investigated groups. IFN-gamma-production was reduced by 50% in patients with mamma carcinoma in three months - possibly caused by chemotherapy and radiation. The amount of IFN-alpha production in cancer patients was dramatically reduced before primary therapy started. The low levels of IFN-alpha persisted for three months compared to the IFN-alpha production in non-cancer patients and healthy controls. The follow-up of patients with breast cancer undergoing chemotherapy showed a suppressive effect on immunological function in IFN-alpha. Our results demonstrate, that patients with breast cancer and cervical cancer showed a significantly reduced capacity to produce IFN-alpha. This study might aim at further trials with biological response modifiers - especially interferon-alpha.