Quantitative and functional study of breast cancer axillary lymph nodes and those draining other human malignant tumors

DI GIROLAMO VMT; LAGUENS RP; CORONATO S; SALAS M; SPINELLI O; PORTIANSKY EL; LAGUENS GE

JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL AND CLINICAL CANCER RESEARCH

BIOMED CENTRAL LTD

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2000 vol. 19 p. 155 - 159

1756-9966

Lymphocyte functional activity from lymph nodes draining human malignancies reflects the host immune response against tumour. Breas! cancer is the neoplasia with the greatest amount of identi fied antigens but a weak inducer of a host efficient immune response. In our study we compared the mitogen stimulated-proliferativeresponse of cel ls isolated from metastases-free lymph nodes draining breast cancer (Group 1), other malignant tumours (Group 2), and those obtained from patients without malignancies (Cont>rol group). A significant decrease of the proliferative response in cells isolated from lymph nodes draining breast cancer was observedcomparing it to the other groups. Quantitative analysis of B and T cells showed a higher number of B ce lis than T cells in Groups 1 and 2. Moreover, Group l presented a two fold in crease of T cells compared with Group 2. Our results suggest that the immunosuppression observed in lymph nodes draining breast cancer is higher than the inmunosuppression presented in other malignant tumours and that impaired function is not correlated with the increased number ofT cells.