Increased sensitivity to normal adherent suppressor cells in untreated advanced Hodgkin's disease

Mononuclear leukocytes isolated from the peripheral blood of 10 untreated patients with advanced stages of Hodgkin's disease and 26 normal volunteers were stimulated with allogeneic cells from normal donors in a one-way mixed lymphocyte culture. When the patients' cells were stimulated by an increased number of normal cells, the baseline mixed lymphocyte culture was suppressed 77.1% +/- 4.1%. In contrast, when the normal responder cells were cultured with increased numbers of normal stimulator cells, mean suppression was only 46.6% +/- 4.4% (p less than 0.001), The removal of phagocytic cells from the high concentration of normal stimulators totally abolished the suppression observed with the patients' cells, resulting in a mean increase in stimulation of 84% above that found in the baseline culture. The suppression could also be reversed by depletion of adherent cells from stimulator leukocytes. When adherent and nonadherent stimulator cells were recombined, significant suppression of proliferation was again observed. The increased suppression was not caused by the presence of autologous plasma in patients' cultures, since similar results were obtained utilizing AB serum. The addition of indomethacin to the cultures only partially reversed the suppression observed with the patients' cells. These studies demonstrates that mononuclear leukocytes from the peripheral blood of untreated patients with advanced stages of Hodgkin's disease have increased sensitivity to a normal adherent suppressor cell system.