Figure 5

The antitumor effect of combination IL-18/chemotherapy is T cell dependent. C57BL/6 (A) or C57SCID (B) mice were injected s.c. in the flank with ID8-Vegf cells and subsequently treated as described in "Materials and Methods." Mice with no treatment, topotecan alone, IL-18 alone or their combination were sacrificed when control tumors reached a size of approximately 600 to 800 mm³ ; all tumors were excised and weighed. Results are medians ± SEM: interquartile range (25%-75%; n = 10). The asterisk indicates the statistically significant difference between experimental and control groups. In the C57BL/6 mice, the topotecan/IL-18 combination treatment significantly restricted the tumor weight relative to the control group (Student's test, p < 0.05), while independent monotherapies did not. In the SCID mice the effect of the combinatorial therapy on the tumor growth was lost with no significant differences between the groups.