Active specific immunotherapy of established micrometastasis: effect of cryopreservation procedures on tumor cell immunogenicity in guinea pigs.

In a transplantable hepatocarcinoma (L10) model of inbred Sewall Wright strain 2 guinea pigs, established micrometastatic tumor foci could be eliminated from the viscera by specific tumor immunity induced by the systemic effect of a BCG-L10 tumor cell vaccine. The conditions of vaccine preparation and regimen were rigid, and a dose dependency for both BCG and tumor cells existed. Comparison of the influence of cryobiologic preservation procedures on the tumor cells to be used in the vaccine showed that cells frozen by an optimized cryobiologic procedure, improved for maintenance of viable cells, were more effective than cells frozen by a conventional glycerol method. The glycerol method resulted in a lower percentage of viable cells, and the effectiveness of the vaccine was greatly diminished. Thus some past failures of active specific immunotherapy could be associated with acute antigenic exposures resulting from suboptimal cryobiologic preservation of tumor cells in the vaccine preparation instead of prolonged or chronic tumor cell antigenic exposure resulting from optimal cryobiologic procedures.