Interleukin 2 and the treatment of leukemia and lymphoma

As evidence has accumulated that allogeneic bone marrow transplantation provides therapeutic benefit by means of a graft versus malignancy effect, there has been a corresponding increase in interest in inducing or enhancing such an effect after chemotherapy and/or autologous bone marrow transplantation. Administration of Interleukin-2 may be one way of achieving this aim. Recent studies have shown the cytokine is tolerated after ABMT/chemotherapy in immunomodulatory doses and that the MHC unrestricted cytotoxic effector mechanisms induced can indeed discriminate between normal and malignant tissue. As always, larger scale randomized studies will be required before the therapeutic efficacy of this approach can be assessed.