[Cellular immune response of bladder tumor patients: effects of aging on cytotoxic activity against T24].

The cytotoxic activity of peripheral blood lymphocytes of 39 control subjects, 42 bladder tumor patients and 15 patients with urological cancer other than bladder tumor against human bladder tumor cultured cell T24 was tested by a 51Cr-release assay. In the healthy donor group, high cytotoxic activity was found in younger people and negative correlation was significantly found between the cytotoxicity and age. On the other hand, high cytotoxic activity was frequently found in older patients with bladder tumors and no correlation between the cytotoxicity and age was found in this group. The mean % cytotoxicity for patients over 50 years old in the bladder tumor group was significantly higher than that for the healthy donor group and other carcinoma group. A large proportion of the cytotoxicity of the control subjects and the bladder tumor patients to T24 was due to lymphocytes that did not form spontaneous rosettes with sheep erythrocytes.