Nonspecific immunity and head and neck cancer: blastogenesis reviewed and revisited.

The present study suggests a correlation between concanavalin A-driven blastogenesis and the clinical course of head and neck cancer. Blastogenesis assays were conducted on peripheral blood lymphocytes from controls and from patients with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the head and neck. Our results indicated that 3H-thymidine incorporation in response to concanavalin A and phytohemagglutinin stimulation were significantly lower for patients' than for controls' lymphocytes, whereas PWM stimulation was not statistically different in these two groups. Differences between patients and controls were most notable with concanavalin A stimulation. Five of seventeen patients had a response to concanavalin A stimulation that was in the normal range when expressed as relative to control values. The clinical course of these five patients seems to point to a better prognosis than that of the remaining patients who had below-normal mitogenic responses.