Transfer factor for adjuvant immunotherapy in cervical cancer.

Abstract

In a prospective randomized double-blind study of 60 patients with invasive cervical cancer, 32 were treated with transfer factor (TF) derived from leukocytes of the patients' husbands, and 28 were treated with placebo. Within the first 2 years after radical hysterectomy, five out of 32 TF-treated patients and 11 out of 28 placebo-treated patients developed recurrence of malignancy. Excluding one further patient with intercurrent death this difference is significant (chi 2 = 3.9915; P less than 0.05). Subdividing the collectives, significant differences were found in patients aged below 35 years and in patients with stage I disease. Identical immune profiles were checked in leukocyte donors prior to leukophoresis and were serially checked in patients. Antigen-specific correlations were found between donors' and recipients' reactivities but not between donors' reactivity and recipient's course of the disease.