A case report of recurrent cervical cancer which responded to a combination of biological therapies.

Adoptive immunotherapy with tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) has been challenged to human cancer patients during these years. However, as the efficacy of the therapy alone is still limited, another approach, a combination with other therapies may be required to obtain more favorable antitumor effects. Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF) is worth considering for combination, because at least its various potential roles in immune response suggest that it might increase the killing activity of T cells against autologous tumor cells. We attempted to treat the cancer patients with TIL combined with TNF therapy. A patient with recurrent cervical cancer was treated with multiple biological therapies including TIL and TNF therapy, and irradiation. Biological therapies consisted of endogenous and exogenous TNF (EET) therapy, TIL, administration of rTNF-SAM2 combined with hyperthermia and several biological response modifiers such as schizophyllan and lentinan. After 50 days of therapy, the recurrent tumor had remarkably decreased in size, and cystic change of the tumor was observed by CT scanning. By further continuation of these therapies, the disease condition was much improved. As these antitumor effects cannot well be explained by irradiation therapy alone, multiple biological therapies are considered to be potentially effective against the highly malignant advanced tumors.