Antitumor activity of two BCG vaccine preparations against the lewis lung carcinoma in mice

✍ Scribed by P. H. Lagrange; M. Gheorghiu

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag
• Year: 1981
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 739 KB
• Volume: 11
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0340-7004
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00199494

✦ Synopsis

Two BCG vaccine preparations were prepared following different production methods. Immuno-BCG Pasteur F was produced by surface culture on Sauton medium; BCG-R1V was a homogenous stirred deep culture.

The antitumor effects of the two BCG vaccines were investigated on the Lewis lung carcinoma (3LL) in C57Bl/6 mice. A direct relationship exists in this tumor model between the loglo dose of single-cell suspension inoculated subcutaneously in the hind footpad of mice and the onset and the degree of local tumor growth and the time of death, which is directly related to the lung metastases. No significant difference from control mice was observed in the two groups of BCG-immunized mice when 3LL tumor cells were injected 2 weeks after BCG immunization. When varying numbers of viable units of the two BCG vaccines were injected together with 105 tumor cells in separate groups of normal mice, a dose-dependent local reaction was observed with Immuno-BCG Pasteur F, which was associated with a delay in the onset and development of tumor growth and an increase in the mean survival time. The local inflammatory reaction produced with BCG-RIV was of lower magnitude, and only the highest concentration (1.8 x 106 viable units) led to some delay in tumor occurrence and mortality. The antitumor effect of a specific local delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) elicited by varying amounts of the two BCG preparations injected together with l0 s tumor cells in separate groups of normal or BCG-immunized mice showed that the challenge injection of Immuno-BCG Pasteur F was in all cases more effective than the BCG-RIV, but these two vaccines were more effective in BCG-RIV-immunized mice than in Immuno-BCG F Pasteur-immunized mice.