Cytotoxicity of lymphocytes against autologous cultured primary lung cancer cells in relation to histological type and clinical stage

: The cytotoxicity of lymphocytes against autologous cultured primary lung cancer cells was examined. A total of 88 patients aged from 34 to 81 years, 71 males and 17 females, were evaluated. These consisted of adenocarcinoma (n = 42), squamous cell carcinoma (n = 33), large cell carcinoma (n = 5), small cell carcinoma (n = 5), carcinoid (n = 2) and primary lung sarcoma (n = 1) cases. There was no correlation between cytotoxicity and age, or with disease stage. The mean values of the cytotoxicities of adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, large cell carcinoma and small cell carcinoma, were 33.9%, 32.5%, 21.6% and 3.5%, respectively. By tentatively defining cases with a cytotoxicity exceeding 15% as positive, the percentage positive rates of each of the four most common histological types were 71.4%, 75.8%, 60.0% and 20.0%, respectively. The mean value of cytotoxicity and the percentage positive rate of small cell carcinoma cases were lower than those of both adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma. When the patients were divided into 3 groups according to their N (lymph node) and T (Tumor) factor, a significant difference was recognized. That is, the mean value of cytotoxicity and percentage positive rate of the group in which the N factor exceeded the T factor minus 1, such as T1N2, T1N1 and T2N2 (N-predominant group), were significantly lower than those of the group in which the T factor minus 1 exceeded the N factor, such as T3N0, T3N1 and T2N0 (T-predominant group) and the intermittent group (T3N2, T2N1 and T1N0).