[Cytotoxicity of T-lymphocytes from a patient with choriocarcinoma to autologous tumor cultured cells--stimulation with the husband's lymphocytes].

The authors recently studied the histocompatibility between patients with choriocarcinoma and their husbands and did an in vitro experiment (in an autosystem) to establish whether choriocarcinoma can be treated with lymphocytes from the husband. The results were as follows. Seventeen pairs of trophoblastic diseases were analyzed for HLA antigens. The histocompatibility rate between the patient and husband was 60% in the choriocarcinoma group, which was larger than the rates for both the hydatidiform mole group (29%) and the invasive mole group (0%). We succeeded in establishing a cultured cell strain of choriocarcinoma. We named this strain SMT-cc 1 and used it in the subsequent autologous experiments. Peripheral T-lymphocytes of the patient with SMT-cc 1 were examined for their cytotoxicity against SMT-cc 1 using the 51Cr release assay. T-lymphocytes of the patient showed a cytotoxicity of 7.6% after independent culture (control experiment), while they showed a cytotoxicity of 19.7% after a 6-day mixed culture with the husband's lymphocytes. The latter figure was almost equal to the rate (22.2%) observed for T-lymphocytes after a similar stimulation procedure using SMT-cc 1. When anti-HLA-A, B antibody was added during the above mentioned cytotoxicity test, cytotoxicity was markedly reinforced. The results of this study indicate the effectiveness of specific immunotherapy which, making use of the fact that choriocarcinoma expresses the husband's genome, intravenously injects lymphocytes into the patient, after stimulation with antigens (husband's lymphocytes or choriocarcinoma cells).