Cytotoxic antibodies in cancer patients: possibilities of correlation with HLA antigens.

Sera from 250 cancer patients were tested against a panel of lymphocytes donors, randomly selected and typed for HLA antigens. In 69 patients HLA typing was also performed according to standard NIH technique. While 95 sera (38%) were cytotoxic for total lymphocytes, an increased cytotoxicity for B-lymphocytes was shown. The data were analyzed by means of 2 x 2 contingency tables (chi-square and correlation coefficients). In the majority of cases (72 = 76%) the sera were polyspecific or not correlated with HLA. The remaining 23 sera(=24%) showed a clear-cut statistical relationship to defined HLA specificities on population studies; 5 of these sera correlated with single antigens detected on HLA phenotype of the patients. It is concluded that serum cytotoxicity may complicate HLA genetic typing in cancer patients. It was also considered that anti-HLA antibodies might cross-react with virus or tumor-specific antigens in cancer patients.