1985 Volume 26 Issue 9 Pages 1451-1457
Natural Killer (NK) cell activity was studied in peripheral blood lymphocytes after bone marrow transplantation (BMT). NK cell activity rapidly increased and reached nearly normal values between day 30 and 50 in all of the patients with BMT. On long survivors, allogeneic BMT patients had lower NK activity than autologous and syngeneic BMT patients. Furthermore, interferon enhanced NK activity of autologous and syngeneic BMT patients, while it did not enhance in allogeneic BMT patients. Recently, NK cells are considered to participate in the immune surveillance against tumors and virus infected cells. Our studies indicate that a significant difference was found when recovery of NK activity was compared between allogeneic and autologous (syngeneic) BMT, and that the frequency of infections and tumors may appear to be higher in patients with allogeneic BMT.
