Association of depressed postoperative lymphoproliferative responses to alloantigens with poor prognosis in patients with stage I lung cancer.

Thirty-five patients with Stage I carcinoma of the lung were tested postoperatively to assess lymphoproliferative responses. Depressed lymphocyte proliferation (LP) responses to alloantaigen in the mixed leukocyte culture (MLC) as measured by thee relative proliferation index (RPI) were associated with a significantly shorter disease-free interval. In this group of patients, the immunologic responses predicted subsequent clinical course better than the TNM classification or the histological type of the tumor, and therefore this procedure appears promising for improved staging of patients with early stages of lung cancer (stage I lung cancer and T1N0M0). The depressed response to alloantaigen was a more sensitive discriminator of disease recurrence than PHA alone or even conbined with PHA.