Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Correspondence
  • Published:

Cellular in vitro immune function in multiple myeloma patients after high-dose chemotherapy and autologous peripheral stem cell transplantation

Leukemia volume 19, pages 490–492 (2005)Cite this article

TO THE EDITOR

Currently, high-dose chemotherapy and autologous peripheral stem cell transplantation (HD/APSCT) are considered the treatment of choice for multiple myeloma (MM) patients younger than 60 years resulting in longer-lasting disease-free survival and increased remission rate as compared to conventional chemotherapy. Recent publications showed that these autografted myeloma patients present a severe defect in T-cell function early after transplantation (⩽12 days) and a decreased CD4 T-cell count lasting approximately 18 months.1,2 As HD/APSCT cannot be considered curative, several groups tried to augment the beneficial effects of this treatment by vaccinations with tumor antigens. In MM patients, monoclonal immunoglobulins with specific antigenic determinants, the idiotype (Id), can serve as a target for active immunotherapy. However, the results of these vaccination trials have been rather disappointing as only sporadic cases showed tumor regression and 17–40% Id-specific T-cell responses.3,4 To elucidate which treatment or clinical parameters affect the recovery of cellular in vitro immune function – a prerequisite for effective tumor vaccinations – after MM therapy, we performed lymphocyte transformation tests (LTT) with samples of 61 MM patients receiving various therapeutic regimens (Table 1 ), compared the results with those from 100 age- and sex-matched healthy controls, and subjected the data from MM patients to multinomial regression analysis.

Table 1 Characteristics of multiple myeloma patients
Full size table

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1
Figure 2

References

  1. Wendelbo O, Nesthus I, Sjo M, Ernst P, Bruserud O . Cellular immune responses in multiple myeloma patients with treatment-induced cytopenia early after high-dose chemotherapy and autologous peripheral blood stem cell transplantation. Leuk Res 2004; 28: 461–468.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Malphettes M, Carcelain G, Saint-Mezard P, Leblond V, Altes HK, Marolleau JP et al. Evidence for naive T-cell repopulation despite thymus irradiation after autologous transplantation in adults with multiple myeloma: role of ex vivo CD34+ selection and age. Blood 2003; 101: 1891–1897.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Reichardt VL, Okada CY, Liso A, Benike CJ, Stockerl-Goldstein KE, Engleman EG et al. Idiotype vaccination using dendritic cells after autologous peripheral blood stem cell transplantation for multiple myeloma – a feasibility study. Blood 1999; 93: 2411–2419.

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Titzer S, Christensen O, Manzke O, Tesch H, Wolf J, Emmerich B et al. Vaccination of multiple myeloma patients with idiotype-pulsed dendritic cells: immunological and clinical aspects. Br J Haematol 2000; 108: 805–816.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Lindemann M, Witzke O, Winterhagen T, Ross B, Kreuzfelder E, Reinhardt W et al. T cell function after IL-2 therapy in HIV-infected patients is correlated with serum cortisol concentrations. AIDS 2004; 18: 2001–2007.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Shannon EJ, Sandoval FG . Thalidomide can costimulate or suppress CD4+ cells' ability to incorporate [H3]-thymidine – dependence on the primary stimulant. Int Immunopharmacol 2002; 2: 1143–1153.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Terpos E, Apperley JF, Samson D, Giles C, Crawley C, Kanfer E et al. Autologous stem cell transplantation in multiple myeloma: improved survival in nonsecretory multiple myeloma but lack of influence of age, status at transplant, previous treatment and conditioning regimen. A single-centre experience in 127 patients. Bone Marrow Transplant 2003; 31: 163–170.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. De Rosa L, Anghel G, Pandolfi A, Riccardi M, Amodeo R, Majolino I . Hemopoietic recovery and infectious complications in breast cancer and multiple myeloma after autologous CD34+ cell-selected peripheral blood progenitor cell transplantation. Int J Hematol 2004; 79: 85–91.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was partly supported by the IFORES program of the Medical Faculty, University Hospital of Essen. We thank Dr M Neuhäuser, Institute for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology, University Hospital Essen, for helpful advice and support on statistical analysis.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Immunology, University Hospital Essen, Germany

    M Lindemann & H Grosse-Wilde

  2. Department of Internal Medicine (Cancer Research), University Hospital Essen, Germany

    P Schuett, T Moritz, B Opalka, S Seeber & M R Nowrousian

  3. Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation, University Hospital Essen, Germany

    H D Ottinger

Authors
  1. M Lindemann
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. P Schuett
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. T Moritz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. H D Ottinger
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. B Opalka
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. S Seeber
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. M R Nowrousian
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. H Grosse-Wilde
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to H Grosse-Wilde.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Lindemann, M., Schuett, P., Moritz, T. et al. Cellular in vitro immune function in multiple myeloma patients after high-dose chemotherapy and autologous peripheral stem cell transplantation. Leukemia 19, 490–492 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.leu.2403633

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.leu.2403633

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links