[Postsurgical adjuvant immunotherapy against primary non-small cell lung cancer].

The prognosis of lung cancer patients is generally poor even when they have undergone complete resection of primary tumors and systemic lymph node dissection. This is mainly attributed to micrometastases which have already developed by the time of surgery and the fact that local therapies cannot eliminate all cancer cells from the body. We developed a multimodality combination therapy for primary non-small cell lung cancer consisting of surgery, chemotherapy, and adoptive immunotherapy using interleukin 2 (IL-2) and lymphokine-activated killer (LAK) cells. The results of a randomized study indicated that the survival rate of the IL-2, LAK adoptive immunotherapy group was significantly higher than that of the control group. In conclusion, IL-2, LAK adoptive immunotherapy is an effective and promising modality which will compensate for the deficiencies of other therapies.