Tumour‐associated lymphocyte cytotoxicity superimposed on “Spontaneous” cytotoxicity in melanoma patients

Abstract
Lymphocytes from 16 stage 1, 6 stage II and 31 stage III melanoma patients (MP) and 51 healthy donors (HD) were tested as far as possible in parallel on a melanoma cell line (NK1‐4), a bladder carcinoma cell line (T 24) and 18 different short‐term melanoma cultures. Lymphocytes from MP and HD showed cytotoxic effects towards all three types of target cells. Lymphocytes from HD showed the strongest “spontaneous” cytotoxic effects on NKI‐4 cells whereas, in general, weak cytotoxic effects were seen on short‐term cultured melanoma cells. Within the different lymphocyte donor groups an enormous variation in cytotoxic effects was observed. However, the overall cytotoxic effects of stage I and II MP were significantly higher than those of the HD‐group. Stage I MP showed significantly stronger cytotoxic effects on NKI‐4 cells than on T 24 cells, indicating that tumour‐associated lymphocyte cytotoxicity was superimposed on spontaneous cytotoxicity.

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