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Press release Treatment of advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma with only radiotherapy has a poor prognosis. Nature clinical practices oncology highlights a research paper from Cancer Immunology Immunotherapy. Jacobs and co-workers from Utrecht University, the Netherlands, publish a remarkable improvement of standard radiotherapy. Addition of interleukin 2 injections increases the 5-years disease-free survival from 8% (radiotherapy only) to 63% (combination therapy). Its location makes nasopharyngeal carcinoma difficult to access for surgery. In advanced stages surgery is impossible due to tumour growth in vital parts of the head, like the encephalic trunk. The tumour can be reached with injections containing interleukin 2. Starting 1989, Prof. Den Otter and his group are successful in research of local interleukin 2 therapy of cancer. The activated immune system makes interleukin 2. In animal experiments, diseased animals and human, local interleukin 2 has resulted almost without any side effects, in higher percentage of cures that standard treatment. Local interleukin 2 therapy was successful in experimental animals with different kinds of advanced cancer. Local interleukin 2 has almost no side effects and is much cheaper than radio- or chemotherapy. Its consequence is, unfortunately, that local interleukin 2 is less interesting for pharmaceutical companies. Research with patients was limited to recurrent bladder carcinoma. The current paper adds nasopharyngeal carcinoma to this list A follow-up study with larger number of nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients is planned, in which local interleukin 2 is tested as addition to the newest standard therapy, a combination of radiotherapy and chemotherapy. The research group also intends to do research on patients with other kinds of cancer with a poor prognosis. More information on the research group and their research can be found at this website (www.cancerimmunotherapy.net).

King (2005) Nature Clinical Practices Oncology 2 (10) : 486

Jacobs et al. (2005) Cancer Immunology, Immunotherapy 54 : 792-8

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Our research is supported by Stichting ter bevordering van het onderzoek in de Experimentele Pathologie en in het bijzonder in de TumourImmunologie. Stichting EPTI, IJselstein, The Netherlands

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