Preclinical evaluation of lentinan in animal models.

Lentinan exerts prominent antitumor effects in allogeneic, syngeneic and autochthonous hosts and prevents chemical and viral carcinogenesis, and increases host-resistance to bacterial, viral and parasitic infections. Lentinan augments helper T cell mediated cytotoxic T cell activity, NK cell activity and humoral immune responses, and activates nonspecific cytotoxicity of macrophages in vivo. Lentinan is a representative of a unique class of T cell adjuvants, and has no toxicity. Therefore, lentinan is suitable for clinical application for cancer patients from the results in its preclinical animal model experiments.