CLINICS 2012;67(6):587-590 CLINICAL SCIENCE DOI:10.6061/clinics/2012(06)07 Interferon-gamma and interleukin-10 production by mononuclear cells from patients with advanced head and neck cancer Luiz C. Conti-Freitas, Maria C. Foss-Freitas, Rui C. M. Mamede, Norma T. Foss Universidade de Sa˜ o Paulo (USP), Medical School of Ribeir a˜o Preto, Ribeira˜ o Preto/SP, Brazil. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to evaluate the production of interferon-gamma and interleukin-10 by stimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells isolated from patients with supraglottic laryngeal cancer before and after surgical treatment. METHODS: Fourteen patients with advanced supraglottic laryngeal cancer were studied. Cultures of peripheral blood mononuclear cells isolated during the preoperative and late postoperative periods were stimulated with concanavalin A and Bacille Calmette-Gue´ rin, and the supernatant concentrations of interferon-gamma and interleukin-10 were measured. RESULTS: For non-stimulated cultures, the interferon-gamma levels produced by the preoperative period and the late postoperative period cultures were lower than the levels produced by the control group cultures. The interferon-gamma levels after stimulation with concanavalin A were higher in the late postoperative period cultures than in the preoperative evaluation cultures. Stimulation with Bacille Calmette-Gue´ rin led to the production of similar levels of interferon-gamma and interleukin-10 by all cultures; thus, stimulation increased the levels of interferon-gamma produced by both the preoperative and postoperative cultures relative to the levels produced by the corresponding unstimulated cultures. CONCLUSION: Patients with advanced supraglottic laryngeal cancer exhibit an in vitro deficiency in interferon- gamma secretion by mononuclear cells. Stimulated cells seem to recover this function during the postoperative period. KEYWORDS: BCG; Cytokines; Interferon-c; Interleukin-10; Head and Neck cancer. Conti-Freitas LC, Foss-Freitas MC, Mamede RCM, Foss NT. Interferon-gamma and interleukin-10 production by mononuclear cells from patients with advanced head and neck cancer. Clinics. 2012;67(6):587-590. Received for publication on October 31, 2011; First review completed on December 21, 2011; Accepted for publication on February 23, 2012 E-mail: lcconti@fmrp.usp.br Tel.: 55-16-3602-2353 INTRODUCTION Although the mechanism of action of Bacille Calmette- Gue´rin (BCG) has not been fully elucidated, BCG is currently regarded as the most successful cancer immu- notherapy (1). BCG seems to enhance the cellular immune response in a nonspecific manner by activating macro- phages and lymphocytes. Intravesical immunotherapy is clinically well established as a treatment for superficial bladder cancer, but it remains an experimental treatment for other solid tumors, such as laryngeal cancer (2). Cytotoxic CD8+ T cells play an important role in the control of tumor cells (3). The immune process, which culminates in the lysis of tumor cells, often begins with Copyright 2012 CLINICS – This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non- commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. No potential conflict of interest was reported. dendritic cells, which detect the tumor antigens presented by Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) molecules expressed on tumor cell surfaces and then phagocytose the presenting cells. These dendritic cells activate lymphocytes, starting the cytotoxic process and tumor cell lysis. This entire cell interaction mechanism is coordinated by different cytokines (4). The proinflammatory activities of cytokines such as interferon-gamma (IFN-c) are associated with Th1 T lymphocyte differentiation. IFN-c is thought to be asso- ciated with anti-tumoral cellular immunity. However, immune response activation involving cytokines such as interleukin-10 (IL-10) can promote Th2 T lymphocyte differentiation and lead to a predominantly humoral immune response (5). Although BCG has been used as a successful immu- notherapy for cancer, few studies have investigated cyto- kine release by BCG-activated immune cells. In a previous study, we evaluated the production of TNF-a and IL-6 in the supernatant of adherent cells cultured from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) isolated from patients with supraglottic laryngeal cancer before and after surgical 587