Cancer Treatment Reviews (1989) 16 (Supplement A), 129-142 A phase-IIstudyofadoptiveimmuuotherapywith continuousinfksionofinterleukin-2inchildren withadvancedneuroblastoma.Areportonllcases M. Favrot,’ D. Floret,*J. Michoq3 S. Negrier,’ E. Bouffet,’ C. Coze,lm7 M. Gaspard,’ P. Cochat,’ P. Thiesse,’ G. Andreq5 J. Costil,6 J. M. Zucker,3 J. L. Bernard,7 W. H. Fridman,3 C. Mathiot,3 J. T. Bijmann,8 C. R. Franks,’ B. Kremens,g I. Philip’ and T. Philip’ ‘Pediatric and Bone Marrow Transplant Department and Radiology Department, Centre Leon Berard, 28 rue Laennec, 69373 Lyon Cedex 08, France; 2Pediatric Intensive Care Department, Hbpital Edouard Herriot, Place d’drsonval, Lyon, France; 31nstitut Curie, 26 rue d’Ulm, 75005 Paris, France; *Centre de Transfusion Sanguine, Unite de Cytapherese, Rue du Vercors, 69007 Lyon, France; ‘Banque du Sang, H&e1 Dieu, 75005 Paris, France; ‘Pediatric Intensive Care Department, H@ital Trousseau, 75 Paris, France; 7CHU Timone, Service d’0ncologie Medicale, Bd Jean Moulin, 13385 Marseille, France; ‘EuroCetus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; gUniversitat Kinderklinik, Essen, F.R.G. Introduction Neuroblastoma (NB) is the most common malignancy of childhood before the age of five years. Considerable progress has been achieved since 1982 in the treatment of very bad prognosis stage-IV NB in children over one year of age. Induction therapy with various combinations of drugs had first made it possible to obtain 90% initial response (2, 20); moreover, consolidation with vincristine, high-dose melphalan and total-body irradiation followed by autologous bone-marrow transplantation (BMT) achieved 40% progression- free survival at 2 years (versus 8% in an historical group, p < 0.005) (18). Although most relapses are observed between 4 and 12 months, the major concern is due to the fact that relapses can occur up to 36 months post-graft. As a consequence, the projection of disease- free survival at 5 years is only between 20 and 25% (19). Progress in the management of NB has been achieved by increasing the dose of chemo- therapy at both induction and consolidation. Successful phase-II chemotherapy with VPlG-CDDP or VPlG-CBDCA is now used during the induction phase of treatment and patients who do not reach complete remission at the end of the induction period receive two consecutive courses of high-dose chemotherapy followed by autologous BMT after 4 months (2, 19, 20). Radiotherapy does not improve the results obtained with chemo- therapy (unpublished data from LMCE group) and we are currently investigating repeti- tive ablative surgery when residual tumor persists. It is therefore obvious that very little Offprint requests should be addressed to: Thierry Philip, LMCE Cooperative Group, Bone Marrow Trans- plant Unit, Centre LCon Btrard, 28 rue Lafnnec, 69373 Lyon Cedex 08, France. 0305-7372/89/lSAO129+ 14 $03.00/O 129 0 1989 Academic Press Limited