Latent virus carrying lymphocytes of patients with urological tumours.

A considerable wealth of data suggest that a virus with oncogen character can play a part in the development or survival of tumours, by disturbing immune reaction. We studied this situation in urogenital tumours. Examining the latent virus carrier with an immunofluorescent method in 96 cases with malignant tumours and 70 control cases, it was found that more than 50% of the patients had latent adeno- or herpes simplex virus antigens in 1-3% of the circulating lymphocytes, whereas virus carriers occurred in hardly a few percent in the control group. Using a lymphocyte transformation test, the non-specific mitogen phytohaemagglutinin was able to transform only 10-50% of the lymphocytes of patients with malignant tumours into lymphoblast cells (the percentage also depending on the stage of the tumour). On the other hand, under the influence of phytohaemagglutinin 55-85% of the lymphocytes of the control group turned into lymphoblasts. The lymphocytes of the majority of patients with tumours became sensitive for specific adeno- and herpes simplex virus antigens, mainly the lymphocytes of those whose cells were virus carriers.