Impaired cytokine production in whole blood cell cultures from patients with colorectal carcinomas as compared to benign colorectal tumors and controls

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Abstract
Cytokine production was investigated in whole blood cell cultures from 74 patients with colorectal carcinomas, 20 patients with benign colorectal tumors, and 314 healthy controls. In the 4 day post induction supernatants the levels of IFN-gamma, IL-1-alpha, IL-2, and TNF-alpha were mesured by a sensitive immunoassay. In the blood cell cultures of the patients with colorectal carcinomas significantly lower values of IFN-gamma (P ⩽.001), IL-1-alpha (P⩽.001), and IL-2(p⩽.01) were found as compared to the patients with bening tumors and the controls, although total and differential leukocyte counts were similar in all three groups. A liner correlation between the levels of IFN gamma and IL-1-alpha and the tumor stages could be shown. Our results suggest that a growing tumor burden may induce increasing immunological deficiencies as reflected by a decreasing cytokine production of the immune cells. © 1992 Wiley-Liss, Inc.