Cellular immunological effects of laser irradiation and immunoadjuvant application

Immune system is critical in the fight against cancer. Particular important is the responses through immune cells that regulate immunological functions. Certain cytokines enhance cancer immunity (such as IL12 and interferon gamma) and others interfere or impede cancer immunity (such as IL10). The clinical outcome can be linked to the balance of these cytokines, such as IL10 to IL12 ratio. Effective treatments often reduce the IL10:IL12 ratio, indicating higher levels of the cancer fighting IL12. To enhance immune responses, a combination of laser irradiation and concurrent use of immunostimulants has been applied for the treatment of tumors. In a recent study, an 805-nm laser in conjunction with indocyanine green (ICG) has been used to treat EMT6 mammary tumors in mice. An immunoadjuvant, glycated chitosan (GC), was intratumoral injected after the laser irradiation. Our preliminary results showed that tumor-bearing mice treated either with the immunoadjuvant alone or with the combination of laser and immunoadjuvant had lower IL10:IL12 ratios than animals that received no treatment. This may play an important in the treatment to decrease tumor size and to increase survival times of mice. Cellular activities after laser-ICG-GC treatment of DBMA-4 mammary tumors in rats also showed infiltration of immune cells to the treatment sites, indicating a possible induced immunity. The combination of laser treatment and immunotherapy has been used to treat late-stage melanoma patients; the responses, both treated primary tumors and the metastases, to the treatment have been promising. The histology of two patients, before and after treatment, is presented to show the effects of this novel treatment method.