Abstract
To clarify the possible regional immunity which might represent well the interrelation between tumor and patient with the tumor, the markers and functions of lymphocytes infiltrating in urologic tumors were studied.
For bladder cancer and testicular seminoma, the distributions of B and T-lymphocytes and its subsets, TM and TG cells, were examined. In the former case, it was found that all of the patients who were proved to have lung metastasis during 3-18 months' follow up period had significantly reduced T cell proportion among lymphocytes obtained from their tumors compared with that of peripheral blood from the same patients, whereas both in patients who had demonstrated neither distant metastasis nor intravesical reccurrence and those who had intravesical reccurrence, the proportions of T and B lymphocytes did not change significantly between tumor tissue and peripheral blood. The proportion of TG cells among T cells infiltrating in the bladder tumor was significantly increased when compared with that of peripheral blood from the same patients. In the latter case, the proportions of T lymphocytes and TG cells were increased compared with those of peripheral blood from the same patients, whereas the proportions of B lymphocytes and TM cells did not change. As for renal cell carcinoma, TG cells increased significantly in tumorous venous blood compared with arterial blood. Antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) was increased in the lymphocytes from the tumorous venous blood than that of arterial blood, whereas spontaneous lymphocyte-mediated cytotoxicity (SLMC) did not change significantly.
These results might indicate that significantly reduced proportion of T lymphocytes infiltrating in tumor tissues compared with that in peripheral blood was correlated with reduced regional cell mediated immunity of cancer patients and their poor prognosis. However, increased number of TG cells infiltrating tumors might be contributory to the favorable prognosis of patients in view of ADCC activity attributable to TG subset. Thus, these parameters might become valuable monitors of the newly available immunological markers reflecting the regional immunity in addition to the general immune status.
