Environmental enrichment augments the efficacy of idiotype vaccination for B-cell lymphoma

Environmental enrichment is known to positively influence the organism's psychologic and physiologic well-being. However, the effects of environmental enrichment on immune responses and cancer prognosis have not been clearly established and its impact on cancer therapy is unknown. Here, we repo...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of immunotherapy (1997) Vol. 30; no. 5; p. 517
Main Authors Benaroya-Milshtein, Noa, Apter, Alan, Yaniv, Isaac, Kukulansky, Tova, Raz, Nava, Haberman, Yael, Halpert, Hila, Pick, Chaim G, Hollander, Nurit
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.07.2007
Subjects
Animals
Antibodies, Anti-Idiotypic - immunology
Cancer Vaccines - therapeutic use
Cell Line
Housing, Animal
Immunotherapy
Lymphoma, B-Cell - immunology
Lymphoma, B-Cell - prevention & control
Lymphoma, B-Cell - psychology
Male
Mice
Mice, Inbred C3H
Neoplasms, Experimental - immunology
Neoplasms, Experimental - prevention & control
Neoplasms, Experimental - psychology
Vaccination
Online AccessGet more information

Cover

More Information
Summary:Environmental enrichment is known to positively influence the organism's psychologic and physiologic well-being. However, the effects of environmental enrichment on immune responses and cancer prognosis have not been clearly established and its impact on cancer therapy is unknown. Here, we report that environmental enrichment mediated a statistically significant improvement of the outcome of immunotherapy in an experimental model of B-cell lymphoma. When mice were immunized with an idiotype-vaccine, those maintained under enriched environmental conditions produced statistically significant higher levels of anti-idiotype antibodies and revealed more attenuated tumor growth than those housed in standard environments. Most strikingly, enriched tumor-bearing mice had statistically significant prolonged survival, with 44% of them disease-free compared with 0% in the standard rearing tumor-bearing mice. The possible mechanisms for the enhancement of immunotherapy by environmental enrichment are cognitive, physical activity, and psychologic. The demonstration of synergistic effect of cancer therapy and environmental enrichment on tumor rejection has important implication for cancer treatment.
ISSN:1524-9557
DOI:10.1097/cji.0b013e31804efc5e