Cyclophosphamide (Cy)-facilitated adoptive immunotherapy of a Cy-resistant tumour. Evidence that Cy permits the expression of adoptive T-cell mediated immunity by removing suppressor T cells rather than by reducing tumour burden.

A cyclophosphamide (Cy)-resistant immunogenic tumour, the L5178Y lymphoma, was used to demonstrate that Cy-treatment of a host bearing this tumour enables passively transferred tumour-sensitized T cells to cause complete tumour regression without any need for Cy to cause a reduction in tumour burden. It was shown that whereas infusion of tumour-sensitized T cells from immune donors had very little effect on growth of the tumour, and whereas treatment with 150 mg/kg of Cy caused appreciable enhancement of tumour growth, combination therapy with Cy plus immune T cells caused complete tumour regression and resulted in long-term survival. Evidence that Cy treatment facilitated the expression of adoptive immunity against the L5178Y lymphoma by eliminating tumour-induced suppressor T cells consisted of the demonstration that tumour regression caused by combination treatment with Cy and immune T cells could be inhibited by infusing the recipient with Cy-sensitive, L3T4+ T cells from tumour-bearing but not from normal donors.