Natural killer cell activity in the perigastric lymph nodes from patients with gastric carcinoma or benign lesions.

Natural killer cell (NK) activity against K-562 myeloid cell line was evaluated in the perigastric lymph nodes from 60 patients with gastric carcinoma and from 35 patients with benign lesions. Lymph node cells (LNC) in either group of patients showed significantly lower level of NK activity when compared to that in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBM) from the same patient. In LNC, the proportions of Leu-7+ and Leu-11+ cells were significantly lower than those in PBM. In addition, LNC contained a cell population, presumably nonadherent and OKT3+ cells, which exhibit suppressor function toward NK activity of autologous PBM. These results indicate that the relative inactivity in the perigastric lymph nodes may be partially attributable to the low level of mature effector cell population mediating NK activity and, at least in part, to a coexistent population of suppressor cells.