Studies on alteration of lymphocyte blastogenesis by immunochemotherapy for lung cancer.

Abstract

Cell-mediated immunity was investigated serially in 60 patients with primary lung cancer in association with disease state and prognosis. The blastogenesis of peripheral blood lymphocytes in response to PHA, ConA, PWM was investigated to evaluate the cell-mediated immunity.
The response of these mitogens was almostly correlated with various clinical performance status.
The responses of these mitogens was sensitively affected by a variety of factors related to therapies. Operative therapy induced immunosuppresive state but immunotherapy recover from immunosuppresive state. The depressed blastogenetic responses in patients with curative and relative-curative operation returned to the lebel around the preoperative status after starting immunochemotherapy. In two months latter after the operation, the blastogenetic responses was down to the operative level and gradually recovered to the level of normal patients. The changes in mitogenic responses could be termed so-called “Rebound phenomenon”. But this phenomenon was not detected in patients with non-curative operation and their responses remainded throughout the observation.
From these studies, preoperative blastogenetic responses may be correlated with clinical features, such as the ability to recover from immunosuppresive status caused by the operation or the reliable clue to predict a prognosis.