[Study of arginase activity in alveolar macrophages from patients with lung cancer].

Alveolar macrophages (AM) were obtained from 20 patients with primary lung cancer and 20 cases with nonmaligment pulmonary disease by BAL and were incubated in vitro in medium with and without BCG and/or IFN-alpha. Then the cell-free supernatants were harvested. The activity of arginase was assayed. It was found that: arginase was produced spontaneously by AM: The spontaneous production of arginase is lower in AMs from the tumor-bearing segments than either nontumor-bearing segments or AMs from the patients with nonmalignant pulmonary diseases (P < 0, .05). The production of arginase was icreased on AMs from the tumor-bearing segments stimulated with BCG and/or IFN-alpha (P < 0.05 or 0.01). The results suggested that (1) There are some function at defects of tumor. (2) The mechanism of anti-tumor and anti-infection activity of BCG and IFN-alpha may possibly increase the production of arginase of AMs.