Natural killer (NK) activity in patients with Hodgkin's disease before, during and after multiple-agent therapy

Natural killer (NK) cell activity was investigated in 108 patients with Hodgkin's disease (HD) during the course of the disease and in 50 healthy volunteers. NK activity of peripheral blood lymphocytes was evaluated against 51Cr labeled K562 cell line in 4 hr Cr release assay. The mean NK activity was highly significantly lower in patients before treatment and in patients in the active phase of the disease during treatment compared with controls, whereas in patients in complete clinical remission was significantly higher. However, in patients responding to treatment NK activity was increasing, reaching normal rate in remission and was exceeding further during remission duration. Nonresponders to treatment showed considerable decrease of NK activity to undetectable values. The pretreatment level of NK activity was not related to subsequent prognosis of the individual patient.