Cytostatic activity of peripheral blood monocytes against bronchogenic carcinoma cells in patients with lung cancer.

Cytostatic acitivity of peripheral blood monocytes against cultured cell lines of bronchogenic carcinoma was examined in patients with lung cancer. Cytostatic activity in lung cancer patients with neither augmented nor suppressed as compared with that of controls such as normal healthy persons, patients with malignancies other than lung cancer, and patients with benign respiratory diseases. There was no correlation between the cytostatic activity of monocytes and the advance of clinical stages of the disease. Conventional modalities of anticancer treatments such as surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and their combination therapy had no effect on cytostatic activity of peripheral blood monocytes. However, adequate immunotherapy with nocardia rubra cell-wall skeleton augmented the cytostatic activity of peripheral blood monocytes, although adequate immunotherapy with Mycobacterium bovis BCG cell-wall skeleton had no effect.