Melanoma skin test antigens of improved sensitivity prepared from vesicular stomatitis virus-infected tumor cells

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Abstract
Crude membrane (CM) extracts from three different cultured human melanoma lines that were “virus‐augmented” (infected with vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) and subsequently inactivated by ultraviolet light) produced positive skin tests in 17 of 20 (85%), 11 of 20 (55%), and 13 of 18 (72%) tests, respectively, performed in 20 melanoma patients. Identical CM extracts from the same melanoma lines that had not been infected with VSV gave positive skin tests in 2 of 20 (10%), 4 of 20 (20%), and 2 of 18 (11%) tests, respectively, performed in the 20 melanoma patients, and no positive tests in the control patients. The 3 virus‐augmented extracts were positive in only 2 of 18 (11%), 0 of 18 (0%), and 1 of 17 (6%) control subjects, respectively. The controls consisted of six normal volunteers and 12 patients with cancers other than melanoma. The “virus‐augmented” CM extracts thus exhibited markedly greater sensitivity without significant loss of specificity as compared to nonvirus augmented extracts when used as tumor‐specific melanoma skin test antigens.