Immunosuppressive activity of sera from patients with colorectal and gynecological carcinomas as evaluated impaired IFN-gamma, IL-1 alpha and TNF-alpha production human peripheral mononuclear cells

The sera from patients with preoperative colorectal and gynecological carcinomas (ovarian and breast cancer) were investigated for their putative immunosuppressive activity (ISA). ISA was measured by determining the changes in the production of IFN-gamma, IL-1 alpha and TNF-alpha by human peripheral mononuclear cells (PBMC) from six normal donors. Phytohemagglutinin-stimulated PBMC were incubated with, sera from patients with colorectal and gynecological. carcinomas and healthy controls and in the 4-day post-inductional supernatants the cytokines were measurd by an enzymoimmunological assay (ELISA). Sera from patients with carcinomas significantly decreased the IFN-gamma production as compared to the controls. In the cultures containing sera from patients with colorectal and ovarian but not breast carcinoma, significantly lower levels of IL-1 alpha and TNF-alpha were measured compared to the cultures with sera from healthy controls.