The effect of autologous tumour vaccine on benzo-a-pyrene induced squamous cell carcinoma of skin in mice

Many studies have correlated the presence of infiltrating immune cells within solid tumours, with a more favourable prognosis. These observations indicate that the immune system may act to defend against tumour formation or growth. The generation of an immune response requires that the tumour cells express antigens recognised by the host immune system. The association between an impaired immune system with advanced tumours and poor prognosis suggests that appropriate stimulation of the immune system against tumour tissues might be beneficial. Active specific immunotherapy with autologous tumour cells or extract has been shown to be effective in causing regression of tumour. The prerequisite for effective immunotherapy is the expression of structures on tumour cells which are antigenic to the immune system and may function as rejection antigens. Various attempts have been made to identify such antigens in different tumours. Many antigens have been detected in different tumours, some of these antigens are immunogenic and some are not. In an attempt to overcoming the difficulty in identifying the tumour antigens and in determining which are immunogenic, could be used as an indicator of the immunogenicity of tumour cells. DC are an antigen presenting cells, the presence of these cells in the region of tumour tissues may indicate the presence of an immunogenic antigens on tumour cells. In this study, squamous tumours induced by BP were chosen for immunotherapy by autologous tumour vaccine because these tumours were reported to have high numbers of dendritic. The application of tumour vaccine to mice possessing these tumours was shown to be effective and to lead to an enhanced immune response against tumour cells compared to controls. DC infiltration of tumours in test group was significantly higher than DC infiltration of control group, this correlating with high degree of tumour necrosis and infiltration of tumours by non-DC leukocytes in test group compared to the control group.