HORIZONTAL STUDIES OF CELL MEDIATED IMMUNE REACTIONS TO AUTOLOGOUS TUMOUR ANTIGENS IN PATIENTS WITH OPERABLE MAMMARY CARCINOMA

Summary.-The leucocyte migration and guinea-pig macrophage migration proce-dures were used to assess cell mediated, tumour directed immune reactions in patients with mammary carcinoma undergoing simple mastectomy with or without post-operative irradiation. Forty-seven per cent of patients reacted to autologous tumour antigens and 40o % to allogeneic antigens when tested 7 days after operation; 23 % reacted to autologous antigens at 2 months, 19 % at 6 months and 34%0 at 1 year after surgery. Reactions to benign tissue fractions were rare. Better discrimina-tion between test and control subjects was obtained when 3000 g sediments rather than nuclei-depleted homogenates (extracts) were used. Irradiation 3-7 weeks post-operatively did not depress the in vitro response at 2 months and yielded a higher rate of positive reactions at 6 months. Correlations of serial LMT responses with certain clinical findings are discussed. A NUMBER of procedures have been Lused to demonstrate tumour directed, cell mediated immunity (CMI) in patients with mammary carcinoma. Delayed lhypersensitivity reactions were observed following intradermal challenge with mam-mary tumour extracts by Hughes an