Prevention of Death from Metastases by Immune RNA Therapy

The effect of immune RNA treatment on the incidence of death from pulmonary metastases was studied in C57BL/6J mice after excision of a B16 murine melanoma. Immune RNA was extracted from the lymphoid tissues of guinea pigs immunized with B16 tumor and then incubated in vitro with normal C57BL/6J mouse splenocytes. Mice receiving intraperitoneal injections of these RNA-treated syngeneic splenocytes after the primary B16 isograft was resectioned showed significantly improved long-term survival (42 to 67 percent in three successive experiments) as compared to control mice (0 to 20 percent survival) receiving untreated splenocytes. The effect of RNA treatment was tumor-specific and ribonuclease sensitive. The results suggest that immunotherapy with immune RNA may be of benefit to certain patients after surgery for cancer.