The elicitation of efficient antitumor immune responses requires the optimal activation of tumor-associated dendritic cells (DCs). Our comparison of the effect of various immunostimulatory treatments on DCs revealed that the best predictor of the success of immunotherapy is not the activation of existing DC populations, but the appearance of a population of monocyte-derived DC in tumor-draining...

CD8 T cells lacking effector activity have been recovered from lymphoid organs of mice and patients with progressing tumors. We explored the basis for lack of effector activity in tumor-bearing mice by evaluating Ag presentation and CD8 T cell function in lymphoid organs over the course of tumor outgrowth. Early after tumor injection, cross-presentation by bone marrow-derived APC was necessary ...

Lymph node swelling in the setting of malignancy generally suggests metastasis of the primary tumor. A granulomatous reaction, i.e. sarcoid reaction, occurring within the lymph nodes draining carcinomas is a well-known but uncommon occurrence. The phenomenon is especially rarely seen in colon carcinoma. We herein report a rare case of a 56-year-old Japanese male with adenocarcinoma of the ascen...

Upper- and lower-extremity lymphoscintigraphy was performed on 50 patients with proven carcinoma of the breast, gastrointestinal system, genitourinary tract, lung, and vulva; 42 patients had 131I-antibodies to carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and 8 patients had 131I-normal goat immunoglobulin G. All metastases in the axillary or inguinal lymph nodes were detected with the CEA antibodies. In nine ...

It is becoming clear that immune cells play many important but sometimes conflicting roles in cancer. Immune profile changes at sites of immune-cancer interactions, such as the tumor microenvironment and tumor-draining lymph nodes (TDLNs), may represent a sensitive predictor of local and distant tumor metastasis. However, standard pathologic analysis of tumor sections has remained at the visual...

The spread of cancer cells from primary tumors to regional lymph nodes is often associated with reduced survival. One prevailing model to explain this association posits that fatal, distant metastases are seeded by lymph node metastases. This view provides a mechanistic basis for the TNM staging system and is the rationale for surgical resection of tumor-draining lymph nodes. Here we examine th...

One clinical precedent for the use of nanosized imaging agents is the localization of the tumor draining sentinel lymph nodes. In this application, radiocolloids such as (99m)Tc-NanoColl are currently used to plan the surgical procedure and to provide acoustic guidance during the intervention. Additional injections of dyes are common to provide optical surgical guidance. Bimodal imaging agents,...