Helix pomatia A hemagglutinin binding activity to peripheral T-lymphocytes in malignant digestive tract diseases Part 2: Clinical studies

Helix pomatia A hemagglutinin (HP) binding activity, a surface marker of peripheral T cells, to neuraminidase-treated peripheral T cells was studied in patients with digestive tract cancer or benign liver disease and in normal subjects. The HP binding activity (ng/10(6) T cells) to T cell subpopulations in peripheral lymphocytes was calculated as: (Amount of bound HP to total peripheral lymphocytes (ng/10(6) cells)) / (Ratio of T cells to total peripheral lymphocytes (%)) × 100. The calculated HP binding activity to T cells was significantly higher in digestive tract cancer patients than in benign liver disease patients (p<0.05) and normal subjects (p<0.01). These results suggest that either the subsets of peripheral T cells with high HP binding activity may be significantly increased or HP receptors of all peripheral T cells may be increased to the same degree in digestive tract cancer patients. This activity may be a useful index of cellular immunity in digestive tract cancer patients, although it seems to have no relevance to the progression of cancer.