In the past few years the immunology of cancer has been the subject of feverish activity and great promise. The long anticipated hope that cancer vaccine will some day rid humanity of the scourge of cancer is just beginning to materialize. Numerous reviews1-8 on the immunologic aspects of cancer have adequately summarized the accomplishments of many scientists in this field. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to report our experiences with autogenous cancer vaccine in terminal cancer patients, and second, to show by passive cutaneous anaphylaxis in guinea pigs the ability of cancer patients to produce humoral antibodies to autologous tumor.
Twenty-one patients formed the subject of this study. All had inoperable cancer with unfavorable prognosis. The tissue for the autogenous vaccine was obtained aseptically at the time of surgery and stored at —4 C. The whole tumor homogenate was prepared by cutting 1 gm of tumor