Investigations on the role of inflammatory and anti-inflammatory agents on the treatment of murine B cell leukemia by recombinant human interleukin-2.

Human recombinant interleukin-2 (rIL-2) was used in an effort to find effective biological therapy against the murine B-cell leukemia (BCL1), a spontaneous, nonimmunogenic, highly lethal leukemia of Balb/c origin. High dose rIL-2 (10(5) Cetus units 3 times a day for 5 days) was proven to be curative for mice inoculated with up to 10(4) BCL1 cells. Considering the fact that mice which showed more clinical signs of rIL-2 related toxicity had higher leukemia-free survival, and in view of the fact that BCL1 is a totally nonimmunogenic tumor, we have investigated the possible role of nonspecific effects of inflammatory and anti-inflammatory agents in order to speculate on the possible therapeutic role of inflammation on the overall effect of rIL-2 in the treatment of BCL1. According to the results presented in this work, it appears that although mediators of inflammation may play some role against leukemia, their overall effect in comparison with high-dose rIL-2 is relatively insignificant.