anti-tumor immunity play a major role in carcinogenesis of NSCLC. CD8 + CD28 À cytotoxic T (Tc) cells and CD4 + CD25 + FoxP3 + regulatory T (Treg) cells known as suppresor CD4+ T cells, have been shown to exist in tumor tissues and inhibits the anti-tumoral immune responses. Natural killer (NK) cells are cytokine producing innate lymphoid cells having cytotoxic capacity to kill tumor cells. In this study the prevalence of Treg cells and CD28 expressing Tc cells and cytotoxic functions were analyzed. Method: The study groups comprised patients with newly-diagnosed non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) (n¼46) with T1-3N0M0 NSCLC, none of whom had received preoperative chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy, and healthy subjects (n¼46). The prevalence of CD3 -CD16 + CD56 + NK cells, CD4 + CD25 + Foxp3 + regulatory (Treg) and CD8 + CD28 À T cells were analyzed by flow cytometry. Cytotoxic capacity of NK and CD8 + T cells were analyzed by CD107a degranulation assay. Result: NK and CD8 + CD28suppressor T cells were increased however percentage of activator CD8 + CD28 + T lymphocytes were significantly decreased in patients with NSCLC compared to healthy subjects (p¼0.002, p¼0.005, p¼0.000, p¼0.001, p¼0.001, p¼0.02 and p¼0.02, respectively). Although the cytotoxic activity of NK cells did not differ between the groups, CD107a expression was found increased in total CD8 + T cells in unstimulated and K562 stimulation (p¼0.001). Although the number of Treg cells are decreased in the NSCLC group but this is not statistically significant. No statistically signficant difference was found in terms of lymphocyte subsets and NK cells between the patients with early(T1) and late stages(T2-3). Conclusion: Our findings showed that suppressor CD8 + CD28 -T cell subset as well as NK cells were increased in patients with operable NSCLC. Increased CD8 + CD28 -T cells might cause supression of antitumour immunity and their prevalence might be useful to assess immunotherapy outcomes in patients. Although the number of NK cells increased significantly, the activity of NK cells did not show difference. Functional evaluation of cells has been found to be more important than cell populations.
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