A part of the cancerous tissue should be preserved for specific immunotherapy during the operation and sent directly to the respective laboratory. Transport requires a special nutrient solution and cooling because of the need for living cells for immunotherapy. On request our laboratory provides information and suitable packaging materials. Our staff freezes a part of the tumour tissue as retain sample. The other part is being expanded in a time-consuming process that usually takes several weeks.

As soon as a sufficient amount of tumour cells has been generated a part is infected with Newcastle Disease Virus (NDV), the other part is treated with hyperthermia. This treatment alters and kills the tumour cells, forcing them to generate certain stress-proteins. These serve as so-called danger signals and enables the immune system to discern tumour cells and healthy cells. Also, they alarm the immune system, a prerequisite for an adequate immune response. This process generates two distinct solutions of cell fragments and proteins that represent a broad spectrum of tumour-antigen and danger signals. The properties of these are very important because they are loaded onto the dendritic cells.