Effect of coordinated therapeutic assays using C. parvum, interferon and arginine butyrate on spontaneous disease and survival of AKR mice.

AKR mice, known to develop spontaneous leukemia in almost 100% of cases, were studied throughout their life-span. Different treatments combining a potent immune stimulator, Corynebacterium parvum (CP), with interferon (IFN) and arginine butyrate were initiated at the 15th week of life. In a preliminary series of experiments, CP (200 micrograms), IFN (20,000 units) and butyrate 50 mM) were employed in a well-defined chronological order. In controls, the mean survival time (MST) was 35.17 +/- 1.67 weeks and the final survival rates was 0/50 mice for all experiments. Only CP associated with arginine butyrate significantly augmented the MST (42.5 +/- 3.66 weeks) and final survival rate (9/35 mice). In an adjusted set of experiments, reducing the IFN concentration to 10,000 and 5,000 units and that of butyrate to 6 mM greatly improved the results. The MST was substantially increased with the combinations of CP + IFN + butyrate (41.4 +/- 1.86 weeks), CP + IFN (42.73 +/- 3.29 weeks) and butyrate + IFN (41 +/- 2.34 weeks), as well as the final survival rates (8/15, 10/15 and 6/15 mice respectively). An important finding was that when CP and IFN were used separately, they were ineffective.