EARLY ANTIVIRAL ANTIBODY-RESPONSE AFTER IMMUNIZATION WITH VIRAL ONCOLYSATE - A POWERFUL PROGNOSTIC MARKER FOR ACUTE MYELOGENOUS LEUKEMIA REMISSION PATIENTS

  • 1 January 1983
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 62  (3) , 616-621
Abstract
Acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) patients (24) in 1st clinical remission received, as a part of their maintenance therapy, repeated injections of viral oncolysate (i.e., avian influenza virus-infected, formalin-inactivated, allogeneic leukemia cells). The anti-oncolysate-virus antibody responses after a single injection, tested by a radioimmunoassay, were in inverse correlation to the remission duration (P .ltoreq. 0.01). The 25% of patients with the lowest responses had a median remission duration of > 36 mo. with no relapses within the first 18 mo. The 75% of patients with higher responses had a median remission time of < 5 mo. and > 80% relapsed within 18 mo. Despite the small number of patients, these differences are highly significant (P .ltoreq. 0.001). Immunization of remission AML patients with viral oncolysate provides a powerful prognostic test. Most early relapses can be predicted, with a modest rate of false-positive and false-negative predictions.