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British Journal of Cancer logoLink to British Journal of Cancer
. 1975 Jul;32(1):16–20. doi: 10.1038/bjc.1975.128

Lymphocyte reactivity in patients with carcinoma of the breast and large bowel.

J J Miller, P R Gaffney, J A Rees, M O Symes
PMCID: PMC2024784  PMID: 1236735

Abstract

The reactivity of lymphocytes from patients with either carcinoma of the breast or large bowel has been studied using the human to mouse normal lymphocyte transfer (NLT) reaction. It was found that, in the case of breast cancer, there was a direct correlation between the clinical stage and a reduced NLT reaction. Only patients with regional lymph node or generalized metastases showed significantly reduced lymphocyte reactivity. However, in the case of large bowel cancer there was a generalized reduction in NLT reactivity which was independent of the clinical stage. Incubation of lymphocytes from individuals without neoplastic disease in serum or plasma from breast cancer patients, showing reduced NLT reactivity, resulted in a reduced NLT reaction. This appears to be indicative of the presence of circulating "blocking factor" in such patients.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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