[Analysis of electrophoretic mobility pattern of immunocompetent cells in the tumor-bearing host]

Effect of tumor burden on the electrophoresis of lymphocytes and macrophages was analyzed with a fully automated cell electrophoretic instrument (Parmoquant). The histogram patterns of peripheral lymphocytes of mice shifted to the lower mobility zone, and that of thymocytes shifted reversely, in the course of development of tumor. In cancer patients, emergence of low mobility T cell (LMT) was observed, and LMT correlated with immunosuppressive factors significantly. The ratio of LMT to high mobility T cells (HMT) tended to increase with tumor growth, and showed extremely high value in the case of recurrent cancers. In the follow-up studies, the LMT/HMT value varied in parallel with tumor growth. The unimodal patterns of macrophages changed to multiple peaks with tumor burden, in experimental animals and in clinical study. At terminal stage, it showed unimodal peak of lower mobility and phagocytic activity decreased. The result indicates that LMT associated with depressed immune state of cancer patients, and electrophoresis of immuno-competent cells may be usefull for cancer diagnosis and early detection of recurrence, because this method is very easy to assay and highly reproducible.