Recently we demonstrated that, in vitro, prothymosin alpha 1 (ProT alpha), a polypeptide from calf thymus, was able to enhance the deranged tumoristatic activity of peripheral blood monocytes from melanoma patients. Now we report, that the thymic preparation Thymex-L significantly enhanced the level of depressed monocyte activity from 19% to 26%, whereas in normal donor groups no significant change of basal activity (35%) was seen. Although the improvement of median levels of killer cell activity was found to be independent from the disease stage, the Thymex-L effect was only statistically significant in stage I and melanoma patients after chemotherapy. In contrast to ProT alpha, Thymex-L did not further enhance monocyte-mediated cytotoxicity when it was applied in combination with rIFN-gamma. However, after stimulation with rIFN-gamma, the median level of TNF-alpha secretion by melanoma monocytes significantly increased (about 2-fold) when preincubated with Thymex-L. These results indicate that depressed monocyte functions in selected melanoma patients may be partially improved by Thymex-L.

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