Fate of gamma-interferon-activated killer blood monocytes adoptively transferred into the abdominal cavity of patients with peritoneal carcinomatosis.

Five patients with colorectal cancer widely metastatic to peritoneal surfaces have been treated i.p. with infusions of autologous blood monocytes made cytotoxic by in vitro incubation with human gamma-interferon. The monocytes were purified by a combination of cytapheresis and counter-current centrifugal elutriation procedures; each week approximately 350 million activated monocytes were given to patients as adoptive immunotherapy by a single i.p. instillation. On the eighth cycle of treatment the trafficking of i.p. infused blood monocytes was studied in two patients by prelabeling the cells with 111In. These activated cells became distributed widely within the peritoneal cavity. Two and 5 days after infusion their position within the peritoneum had not changed. When peritoneal specimens were obtained 36 h after 111In-labeled monocyte infusion, labeled monocytes were demonstrated to be associated with the serosal surfaces by autoradiographic analysis. Scintiscanning structures outside the abdominal cavity revealed that 111In-labeled monocytes infused i.p. did not traffic to other organs during the 5 days of the study. We conclude that i.p. adoptive transfer of autologous killer blood monocytes is an effective way of delivering these cytotoxic cells to sites of tumor burden on peritoneal surfaces in these cancer patients.