[Value of DNFB skin testing in patients with bladder cancer (author's transl)]

Dinitrofluorobenzene (DNFB) was used to sensitize 156 patients (124 patients with bladder cancer, 32 controls) to test their ability to be immunized with a newly encountered antigen. All control persons had a normal reaction to DNFB. 16.1% of the tumor patients reacted anerg. The reactivity of the cancer patients depended on the tumor stage. Patients with stage T 1 tumors reacted more positive than those with stage T 3 tumors. Unfortunately, these results had only a value for a group of patients and cannot be extrapolated for application to a given patient. Our results suggested that the prognosis of a cancer patient could be depend of the skin reactivity result. DNFB skin testing is a good method for the estimation of immune status in bladder cancer.