Cancer establishment and progression

Immunological evaluations on cancer patients provide informations to understand the disregulations which allow the tumor to locate and progress in the host. In colon cancer patients and controls we examined the serum levels of various cytokines and the proliferative response of PBMC to IL-2, IL-4, anti-CD3mAb. Our results show that in patients there was a significant serum increase of IFN?, IL-4, IL-6, whereas IL-2 significantly decreases. This situation is indicative for the functional presence of inflammatory CD4+TH2 cells. In patients it is possible to note a negative correlation between the proliferative response to IL-2 and stage of the disease (*P = 0.0024), which changes into positive when anti-CD3 is added (*P = 0.007) (indicative for a functional increase of CD4+TH2 cells with the disease progression). Moreover in patients the proliferative response to IL-2 + anti-CD3 was comparable to controls (§P = 0.42), whereas in the former there wasa significant reduction after IL-4 addition (§P = 0.005). This effect of IL-4 on IL-2 + anti-CD3 starts at stage II, whereas at stage I the response is still comparable to controls and there is a greater response to IL-2 alone (§P = 0.0035). Analysing our data, it seems that the start of the immunological response in patients is of inflammatory type and it degenerates because IL-4, which raises with the disease progression, interferes with IL-2 mechanisms.