Study of leukocyte adherence inhibition test in lung cancer.

The significance of immunity in lung cancer patients has remained unclear. In this report, the relationship between the leukocyte adherence inhibition test in glass test tubes (tube LAI test) which seemed to be a tumorspecific immune response and the delayed hypersensitivity(DH) skin test was studied. The tissue extracts from squamous cell carcinoma, adenocarcinoma of the lung and adenocarcinoma of the colon were prepared for the tube LAI test on 40 lung cancer patients. Thirty-two patients out of 40 were also examined by a battery of DH skin tests including PPD, Candida, SK-SD and PHA. The follwoing results were obtained. 1. Lung cancer patients showed a significantly high nonadherence index (NAI), calculated from the difference of the numbers of non-adherent cells in the presence of tissue extracts, and 35 per cent of them were positive for the tube LAI test. 2. The positive cases with the tube LAI test seemed to react more specifically with extracts from the same histological type. 3. Eight cases out of 13 (61.5%) in stage I and Ⅱ, and 6 cases out of 27 (22.2%) in stage Ⅲ and Ⅳ were positive for the tube LAI test. Early stage cases had a high incidence of positive tube LAI test. 4. Eleven cases out of 13 (85%) with positive tube LAI tests showed normal DH skin reactions. On the other hand, 11 cases out of 16 (69%) with positive DH skin tests were related to positive tube LAI tests