Decreased sensitivity of T lymphocytes to normal adherent suppressor cells in patients with head and neck cancer.

The sensitivity of T Lymphocytes to the inhibitory action of normal adherent cells in the mixed lymphocyte reaction (MLR) was studied in 20 subjects with head and neck cancer. T lymphocytes from cancer patients proliferated in the MLR both in the absence and in the presence of increasing numbers of autologous as well as allogeneic adherent cells, while the blastogenesis of T lymphocytes from controls was inhibited up to 70% by the addition of adherent cells to the culture. Such a lack of sensitivity to adherent cells in cancer patients occurred both in allogeneic and in autologous MLR. These observations indicate that the immunocompetence of patients with head and neck cancer may be related to a defect of macrophage-T lymphocyte interaction similar to the one described in patients with common varied immunodeficiency.