Influence of interferon-alpha combined with chemo (radio) therapy on immunological parameters in pancreatic adenocarcinoma.

Prognosis of patients with carcinoma of the exocrine pancreas is particularly poor. A combination of chemotherapy with immunotherapy could be an option for treatment of pancreatic cancer. The aim of this study was to perform an immunomonitoring of 17 patients with pancreatic cancer from the CapRI-2 study, and tumor-bearing mice treated with combination of chemo (radio) therapies with interferon-2α.

Open-label, multicenter, randomized phase III trial of adjuvant chemoradiation plus interferon Alfa-2b versus fluorouracil and folinic acid for patients with resected pancreatic adenocarcinoma.

Purpose: Adjuvant chemotherapy prolongs survival in patients with pancreatic cancer, but its benefit is limited. Long-term survival times of up to 44 months after adjuvant chemoradioimmunotherapy in phase II trials motivated the present study.

Patients And Methods: Between 2004 and 2007, 132 R0/R1 resected patients received either fluorouracil (FU), cisplatin, and interferon alfa-2b (IFN α-2b) plus radiotherapy followed by two cycles of FU (arm A, n=64) or six cycles of FU monotherapy (arm B, n=68).

An open label randomized multicentre phase IIIb trial comparing parenteral substitution versus best supportive nutritional care in subjects with pancreatic adenocarcinoma receiving 5-FU plus oxaliplatin as 2nd or higher line chemotherapy regarding clinical benefit - PANUSCO.

Background: Pancreatic cancer is an extremely aggressive malignancy. Subjects are afflicted with a variety of disconcerting symptoms, including profound cachexia. Recent data indicate that the outcome of oncological patients suffering from cancer cachexia could be improved by parenteral nutrition and that parenteral nutrition results in an improvement of quality of life and in prolonged survival.

A randomized multicentre phase II trial comparing adjuvant therapy in patients with interferon alpha-2b and 5-FU alone or in combination with either external radiation treatment and cisplatin (CapRI) or radiation alone regarding event-free survival - CapRI-2.

Background: The 5-year survival of patients with resected pancreatic adenocarcinoma is still unsatisfying. The ESPAC-1 and the CONKO 001 trial proofed that adjuvant chemotherapy improves 5-year survival significantly from approximately 14% to 21%. In parallel, investigators from the Virginia Mason Clinic reported a 5-year survival rate of 55% in a phase II trial evaluating a combination of adjuvant chemotherapy, immunotherapy and external beam radiation (CapRI-scheme).

Identification of tumor-associated antigens in chronic lymphocytic leukemia by SEREX.

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is associated with a variety of immunologic disturbances. Hypogammaglobulinemia and autoimmune phenomena are both often present in this disease. In contrast, humoral or cellular antitumor responses are rarely observed.

T-cell responses against chronic lymphocytic leukemia cells: implications for immunotherapy.

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) cells are ineffective antigen-presenting cells (APCs) although CD40-activated CLL cells can stimulate proliferation of autologous and allogeneic T cells. We examined the antigen-presenting capacity of CD40-activated CLL cells as well as dendritic cells pulsed with apoptotic bodies of CLL cells to generate autologous and allogeneic immune responses against CLL cells. Both APC types were capable of generating T-cell lines that proliferate specifically in response to unstimulated CLL cells.