Immunological tumour profile: organ-specific carcinoma diagnosis in patients employing the macrophage electrophoretic mobility test.

The macrophage electrophoretic mobility (MEM) test provides a highly sensitive in vitro technique for the detection of cell-mediated immunity in man. The principle involved is the lymphokine-mediated reduction of the negative surface charge of guinea pig macrophages shown by the slowing of the macrophages during cell electrophoresis. Lymphocytes from 162 patients were tested by MEM. They were exposed to a battery of KCl extracts from normal and malignant human tissues, to encephalitogenic protein (EP), to carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), and to thyroglobulin. Variable lymphocyte responses to EP, CEA and KCl extracts from different cancers gave MEM reaction profiles common to patients with carcinomas of the same organ origin.