Antitumor and antimetastatic activities of human recombinant interferon alpha A/D.

Human recombinant interferon alpha A/D (alpha A/D) was examined for its antitumor activity in several mouse tumor models using metastatic tumors, such as B16 melanoma F1, BL6 and F10, UV2237m fibrosarcoma, and K1735m melanoma. Therapeutic treatment with alpha A/D reduced the incidence of pulmonary metastasis and inhibited the tumor growth resulting in an increase of the mean survival time. Since alpha A/D also showed a prophylactic activity against the metastasis, its antitumor activity was suggested to be due to augmentation of the host defense systems. This was confirmed by the fact that alpha A/D inhibited the in vivo growth and incidence of pulmonary metastasis of B16 F1 sublines regardless of their sensitivity to the direct antiproliferative activity of the IFN in vitro.