Studies on cell-mediated immunity in patients with malignant tumor. Part 1. Leukocyte migration inhibition test in patients with lung cancer.

Leukocyte migration inhibition tests (LMIT) were performed in 46 patients with primary lung cancer. The three kinds of antigens were allogeneic 3 M KCl extracts of lung cancer tissues obtained from patients with adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma and small cell carcinoma. Nine of the 46 patients (19%) had positive LMITs using adenocarcinoma antigen, seven patients (15%) with squamous cell carcinoma antigen and eleven patients (24%) with samll cell carcinoma antigen. LMITs were all negative in 10 patients with benign lung disease, 10 patients with non-pulmonary cancer and 12 healthy volunteers. These findings suggested that some patients with lung cancer had cell-mediated immunity against a lung tumor-associated antigen not restricted to a given histologic type of lung cancer. Further study on the relationship between LMIT and the clinical stage of lung cancer revealed that the percentage of positive LMITs in patients with localized disease was higher than in patients with extensive disease.