Natural killer cell activity in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma relative to early development and tumor invasion

✍ Scribed by Wan-Long Chuang; Hong-Wen Liu; Wen-Yu Chang

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1990
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 447 KB
• Volume: 65
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0008-543X
• DOI: 10.1002/1097-0142(19900215)65:4<926::aid-cncr2820650418>3.0.co;2-u

✦ Synopsis

To evaluate the significance of natural killer (NK) cell activity in the clinical assessment of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), 32 patients combined with liver cirrhosis (LC) and HCC, and 29 LC patients were studied. The NK cell activity was markedly decreased in HCC patients and the LC group as compared with the control group, but there was no statistical difference between the NK cell activity of the HCC group and the LC group. The depression of NK cell activity in HCC patients was inversely correlated with the patient's age, and the HCC patients with venous invasion or with both lobes involved had lower NK cell activity. These results suggest that the decreased NK cell activity in HCC patients might be related to the coexistent liver disease, and marked decrease in NK cell activity might be one of the causes for the early development and invasion of HCC. Cancer 65:926-930, 1990. ATURAL KILLER (NK) CELLS are large granular N lymphocytes which participate in the control of tumor cell growth, microbial infection, and immunoregulation.' They exhibit natural cytotoxicity against tumor cells in vitro. 2-4 In animal studies, depressed NK cell activity leads to a high incidence of tumor o c ~u r r e n c e , ~~~ and the N K cells also play an important role in the inhibition of experimental tumor meta~tasis.~-~ Similar phenomena are observed in human cancer patients. The NK cell activity is decreased significantly in cancer pa-tient~,"-'~ and the degree of impairment is correlated with the invasiveness of malignancy.'3-'4

Although defects in NK cell activity have been found in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC),'5-2' the correlation between NK cell activity and the clinical status in HCC patients has not been well defined. To examine the influence of clinical parameters on NK cell activity, we assessed the NK cell activity in patients combined with HCC and liver cirrhosis (LC).

Materials and Methods

Patients

Thirty-two initially untreated patients who had both HCC and LC were studied. Their ages ranged from 27 to