[The cellular immune status in normal subjects, patients with and without neoplasms]

The distribution of lymphatic subpopulations in the peripheral blood of patients with malignant solid tumors has been studied in two steps. Firstly, it was investigated whether there are changes in the distribution of blood lymphoid cell populations in tumor patients (n = 101) compared to normal individuals (n = 39) and whether there is a correlation between the distribution pattern and the clinical stage of the disease. There was found a significant reduction of T-lymphocytes in patients with cancer, which was marked in the advanced tumor disease (n = 34). In a further step the influence of curative tumor-resection on the lymphatic subpopulations was studied, when 26 operated tumor patients were compared with 23 operated patients without neoplasia. In the group with non-malignant diseases there could not be found a significant pre- and postoperative difference concerning the T- and B-lymphocyte counts. Tumor patients showed after resection of the tumor a significant increase of the absolute and relative number of preoperatively reduced T-lymphocytes. The pathophysiological possibilities for the phenomena of a reversible reduction of T-lymphocytes by the curative resection of the tumor are discussed.