Human autologous rosettes. II. Prognostic significance of variations in autologous rosette-forming cells in the peripheral blood of cancer patients.

The distribution of autologous rosette-forming cells (A-RFC) was determined in 55 samples of peripheral blood mononuclear cells from healthy adult donors and 407 samples from 112 cancer patients. The mean percentage and absolute number of A-RFC were significantly reduced in the cancer patients compared to the healthy adult donors. These values for A-RFC were even more significantly reduced in patients with cancer relapse than in patients with complete remission of cancer. Thus diminution of this pertinent subset of T-lymphocytes has interesting clinical value by its being closely related to an adverse prognosis.