title: The influence of the thymic preparation thymex-L on deficient antitumor-activity of monocytes from melanoma patients in-vitro.
abstract: Recently we demonstrated that, in vitro, prothymosin alpha 1 (ProT alpha), a polypeptide from calf thymus, was able to enhance the deranged tumoristatic activity of peripheral blood monocytes from melanoma patients. Now we report, that the thymic preparation Thymex-L significantly enhanced the level of depressed monocyte activity from 19% to 26%, whereas in normal donor groups no significant change of basal activity (35%) was seen. Although the improvement of median levels of killer cell activity was found to be independent from the disease stage, the Thymex-L effect was only statistically significant in stage I and melanoma patients after chemotherapy. In contrast to ProT alpha, Thymex-L did not further enhance monocyte-mediated cytotoxicity when it was applied in combination with rIFN-gamma. However, after stimulation with rIFN-gamma, the median level of TNF-alpha secretion by melanoma monocytes significantly increased (about 2-fold) when preincubated with Thymex-L. These results indicate that depressed monocyte functions in selected melanoma patients may be partially improved by Thymex-L.
authors: FREE UNIV BERLIN,INST PHARM,D-12169 BERLIN,GERMANY. FREE UNIV BERLIN,UNIV KLINIKUM BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,INST MED STAT & INFORMAT VERARBEITUNG,W-1000 BERLIN,GERMANY. FREE UNIV BERLIN,UNIV KLINIKUM BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,DERMATOL ABT,W-1000 BERLIN,GERMANY. INST IMMUNOL & THYMUS RES,BAD HARZBURG,GERMANY.
authors: F
authors: F
authors: Garbin
authors: K
authors: K
authors: Eckert
authors: P
authors: P
authors: Buttner
authors: C
authors: C
authors: Garbe
authors: J
authors: J
authors: Czarnecki
authors: H
authors: H
authors: Maurer