Lymphokine-activated killer activity and natural killer activity in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

Lymphokine-activated killer (LAK) activity and natural killer (NK) activity in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) were assessed and proven to be severely impaired in comparison with those in healthy volunteers and liver cirrhosis (LC). NK activity, or LAK activity in individual HCC patients could not be correlated with age, size of the tumor mass, and liver function tests. The sera of patients with HCC showed inhibitory effect on NK activity and on the induction of LAK activity from normal peripheral mononuclear cells, but this serum inhivitory activity on LAK induction was abrogated by 56°C, 30 minutes heat-inactivation or by adding an increased amount of rIL-2 in the culture medium.
So immune surveillance on oncogenesis is shown to be impaired, and suppressed by heat-labile serum inhibitor in HCC patients.