[Large granular lymphocytes (LGL) in the peripheral blood of patients with gynecological malignancies]

Large granular lymphocytes (LGL) containing almost all natural killer (NK) and killer (K) cells were studied in the peripheral blood of patients with gynecological malignancies. The results obtained were as follows: The ratio of LGL/peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) in normal volunteers was almost the same as that in patients with benign gynecological tumors, showing a tendency to increase, though not significantly, with age. The ratio of patients with precancerous disease or preinvasive cancer, including severe dysplasia, CIS and endometrial atypical hyperplasia, decreased more slightly than that of controls. On the other hand, that of patients with invasive malignant tumors, including uterine cervical cancer, endometrial cancer, uterine sarcoma, ovarian cancer and vulval cancer, increased significantly more than that of controls. The ratio showed no significant variation due to the difference in tumor sites and clinical stages Ia to III of cervical cancer. Out of 8 patients with ovarian cancer, 6 showed an extraordinarily high LGL/PBL ratio. It is concluded from the present study that the increase in the LGL/PBL ratio may be used as a new criterion in diagnosing invasive malignancies, including ovarian cancer, although the significance of the changing ratio still remains to be clarified.