Detection of cellular immunity derangements in chronic gastritis by a skin window test.

An autologous "skin window test," used lately for the study of cellular immunity in cancer, was applied here successfully to 54 patients with upper-gastrointestinal ailments, 48 of whom had a coexistent fundic and/or antral chronic gastritis of varying severity. The diagnoses of gastritis were made by multiple fiber-gastroscopic biopsies. The ether-alcohol-fixed cryostat sections of fundic and antral biopsies were mounted on cover slides and placed on small cutaneous abrasions of the forearm of the same patients for 24--28 hr. The exudates on cover slides and on imprints of the abrasions were read blindly for the mononuclear cell response according to criteria set for this test by Black and Leis (10). A positive reaction was obtained in 8 of the 54 patients using autologous fundic mucosal biopsy. An autologous antral mucosal biopsy gave positive reaction in only 2 of the 26 of the patients in whom it was used. The positive yield of this autologous skin window test in chronic advanced fundic gastritis was somewhat higher than that obtained by other authors using lymphocytes blast transformation or macrophages migration inhibition test in vitro. It was much higher than the yield obtained by others who used skin tests in vivo, with homologous or heterologous gastric mucosal extracts as antigens. The autologous skin window is safe in regard to possible transmission of hepatitis. Its applicability for detection of cellular immunity derangement in chronic gastritis carries promise.