Increased incidence of antibody in pre-malignant occupational bladder cancer

Sera from 26.7% of the clinically healthy chemical workers with occupational exposure to bladder carcinogens produced immunofluorescent staining of the intracellular antigens of an allogeneic transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder. The incidence of positives among normal donor's and early stage bladder cancer patients was much lower, viz. 3.6 and 6.7%, respectively. The same sera were also tested for their staining reactions against surface antigens of bladder tumour cells. Again sera from a higher proportion of chemical workers (28.6%) was found to produce immunofluorescence compared with with normal donors (12.6%) and bladder cancer patients (18.6%). The elevated incidence of antibodies among chemical workers' sera was not due to autoantibodies which were similarly distributed in the 3 groups. Furthermore, the staining of chemical workers' sera was not tumour type specific as all the sera which stained membrane or intracellular components were found to lose their staining ability on absorption with non-bladder tumour cells. It is proposed that these antibodies result from carcinogenic damage and have a physiological role to play.