Immunobiology of primary intracranial tumors. Part 1: studies of the cellular and humoral general immune competence of brain-tumor patients.

Cellular and humoral immune parameters were evaluated in a series of brain-tumor patients, 42 with glioblastoma multiforme, 17 with other anaplastic gliomas, and 17 with meningiomas. A degree of anergy was found, which seems in the group as a whole to be proportional to the degree of anaplasia. In addition, serial bimonthyl testing in individual cases revealed further reduction in certain immune responses coincident with clinical decline.