T-cell deficiency in patients with squamous cell cancer of the head and neck

Lack of MHC class I surface expression on neoplastic cells and poor activation of the secretory pathway of cytotoxic cells in oral squamous cell carcinomas

“…Indeed, in the cervical SCCs studied, the percentage of CD8+ lymphocytes that were positive for granzyme B varied between 15% and 100%. Since in both studies the antibody used to detect granzyme B was the same, these findings support studies indicating that the cellular immune response in patients with head and neck cancer is particularly poor (Wanebo et al, 1975;Lichtenstein et al, 1980).…”

Aetiology of oral cancer in patients ≤ 30 years of age

“…Even though a small percentage of these patients were reported to abuse tobacco and alcohol in some series (Macgregor et al, 1983;Newman et al, 1983;Son et al, 1985), the overall proportion of young patients with the chewing habit is low. This lack of significant habits in young patients have prompted many to postulate factors like immune deficiency (Wanebo et al, 1975;Jenkin et al, 1976) and genetic factors (Sarna et al, 1975) in the aetiology of these cancers. Dietary factors (Notani et al, 1975;Marshall et al, 1982;Winn et al, 1984) and viruses (Sabin et al, 1973;Kumari et al, 1987) have been incriminated in addition to established risk factors like tobacco and alcohol in oral cancer.…”

Prognosis of Primarily Treated Localized Laryngeal Carcinoma Ameliorated through Levamisole Treatment

“…Secondly, several types of immune derange ment may be found in patients with head and neck cancer. Such alterations include a decreased number of circulating lymphocytes in a fraction of the patients [Jenkins et al, 1976[Jenkins et al, , 1977 -particularly in the more advanced stages [Hilal et al, 1977], all the more so if the DNCB skin test reactivity is weak [Gilbert et al, 1978] -, a decreased level of circulating T lymphocytes in some but not all patients Eastham et al, 1976;Olkowski and Wilkins, 1975;Sesterhenn et al, 1977;Stéfani et al, 1976;Wanebo et al, 1975], a diminished lymphocyte response to various mitogens in a substan tial number of patients Hilal et al, 1977;Jenkins et al, 1976Jenkins et al, , 1977Silverman et al, 1976;Wanebo et al, 1975], a depressed mixed lym phocyte reaction in a high percentage of the patients , and a weakened skin test reac tivity to DNCB even in several patients with early dis ease [Gilbert et al, 1978;Hilal et al, 1977;Wanebo et al, 1975;Lundy et al, 1974], Moreover, several of these deficiencies may be provoked by or persist for a long time after curative radiotherapy [Jenkins et al, 1976[Jenkins et al, , 1977Olkowski and Wilkins, 1975;Sesterhenn et al, 1977;Stefani et al, 1976;Tarpley et al, 1975], These changes in the immune status would not worry the clinician, were it not that there seems to be a correlation between the prognosis of head and neck cancer patients and their immune status. More partic ularly, this has been shown regarding the regional lymph node histology [Berlinger et al, 1976;Zechner, 1975] and the stroma reaction around the tumor [Zechner, 1975;Sala and Ferlito, 1976]; similarly, the absolute lymphocyte count tends to be somewhat lower in patients who will relapse after primary treatment though the predictive value of this variable seems reportedly to be more marked in DNCB-negative patients …”

“…Delayed type hypersensi tivity reactions of the skin, particularly using DNCB as an antigen, have been studied by several investigators. These reactions bear some relationship to the progno sis: the quality of the correlations has been found to range from poor [Gilbert et al, 1978] to good [Maisel andOgura, 1973, 1976;Stefani et al, 1976;Wanebo et al, 1975;Nitze et al, 1977;Parker et al, 1975], though it may be particularly good in early stage dis ease [Hilal et al, 1977;Lundy et al, 1974], Based on these and similar observations, and on the available knowledge of tumor immunobiology in gen eral, it has been concluded that backing the host de fense mechanisms by immunotherapy, at the time the tumor burden has been reduced to a clinically inapparent residue by surgery or irradiation, could be helpful in ameliorating the prognosis of patients with a cancer of the head and neck area [Neel and Woods, 1977;Woods, 1975]. There is no point in arguing that there is still a need to find measures that ameliorate the prospects of such patients as a substantial number of them are known to have residual disease after this primary treatment.…”