T Regulatory Cells in Renal Cell Carcinoma (PILOT STUDY)

National University Health System (NUHS)

Status: Completed

Conditions: Renal Cell Carcinoma

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT00717743

RC02/31/06

Details and patient eligibility

About

To define the frequency of T regulatory cells in peripheral blood of RCC patients before and after nephrectomy.

Study hypothesis: That nephrectomy results in a normalisation of peripheral blood T regs in early stage RCC, and a lowering of T regs in advanced RCC.

Full description

T regulatory cells (T regs) are a recently identified subset of T cells with inhibitory functions on the immune system. In cancer, it has been shown that there is an increased proportion of T regs in several different human malignancy states. T regs are found to be elevated in peripheral blood mononuclear cells, draining lymph nodes and in the primary tumor itself. There has also been correlation between peripheral blood T regs and tumor stage, tumor relapse and survival. It has been proposed that the T regs are activated and expanded by factors produced by the tumor microenvironment. They are thought to play a role in preventing or demising host T-cell responses against cancer, including a suboptimal host responses to vaccine strategies. Strategies to reduce T regs in cancer patients are being explored as a novel immunologic anti-cancer approach.

Renal cell cancer (RCC) is a tumor with well-known immune-mediated phenomena such as spontaneous regression. There is paucity of data on T regs in RCC. We propose to study the frequency of peripheral blood T regs before and after nephrectomy for RCC. We will document the baseline frequency of T regs in RCC and if nephrectomy results in a change in levels. We hypothesize that nephrectomy will lower peripheral T regs to normal levels in early stage RCC, and will reduce peripheral T reg levels in advanced RCC patients. If found to be so, T regs could in future be used as an indicator of disease recurrence in early stage RCC. In advanced RCC, lowering of T reg levels may help explain the previous hypothesis that debulking nephrectomy results in improved anti-tumor immunity, provide rationale for second debulking procedures, and be correlated with subsequent clinical course.

The main laboratory technique is flow cytometry. This will be a pilot study with small patient numbers. Only blood samples are required.

Sex: All

Ages: 21+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Subjects must meet all of the inclusion criteria to participate in this study:

• Diagnosed Renal Cell Carcinoma patients for whom nephrectomy is planned or scheduled as treatment. (Preoperative histologic diagnosis is not required.)
• All stages of disease are eligible.
• Adult patients above 21.
• Ability to provide informed consent

Exclusion criteria

Subjects meeting any of the exclusion criteria at baseline will be excluded:

• Active infection.
• Immunocompromised or other active immune disorders.
• Not on any immunomodulating therapy.

Trial design

0 participants in 1 patient group

1

Description:

Patients diagnosed with RCC.