Serum soluble interleukin-2 receptor and immunohistochemical staining of IL-2R/Tac antigen in gastric cancer

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In the present study, we investigated the clinical significance of serum sIL-2R in patients with early gastric cancer. 215 patients with gastric cancer were enrolled in this study. Levels of serum soluble IL-2R were measured by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The levels of sIL-2R in cases with metastatic lymph nodes were significantly higher than those without metastatic lymph nodes. Moreover, Levels of serum sIL-2R in 74 patients with early gastric cancer were measured. Five of these 6 cases with metastatic lymph nodes demonstrated positive levels of serum soluble IL-2R, while 43 of 68 cases without metastatic lymph nodes demonstrated negative levels of serum sIL-2R. In the tissues obtained from 19 cases, immunohistochemical staining was performed with mouse anti-human interleukin-2 receptor antibody. 13 of 19 cases showed Il-2R positive cells in gastric cancer tissues. Similarly, Il-2R positive cells were recognized in the tissues of metastatic lymph nodes. These results may suggest that activated T lymphocytes infiltrating into the cancer tissues play an atitumor role and release a large amount of sIL-2R, resulting the high levels of serum sIL-2R in patients with gastric cancer. Moreover, we could get the same results in colorectal cancer as in gastric cancer. According to these data, T-lymphocytes, stimulated by humoral mediator released from cancer cells, would become to be activated T-lymphocytes, resulting in the anti-tumor effects in gastrointestinal cancer.