J.Jpn. Surg. Soc.. 91(9): 1178-1181, 1990

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Report on the annual meeting

INFLUENCE OF SURGICAL STRESS ON CELL-MEDIATED IMMUNE RESPONSES

We have investigated the postoperative changes in macrophage and lymphocyte function and the effect of preoperative administration of BRMs in cancer patients. The number of blood monocytes and their IL-1 production were significantly enhanced after operation until day 7. The number of blood lymphocytes reduced for 2 weeks after operation. Lymphoproliferative response, IL-2 production, NK activity and LAK activity were significantly suppressed by surgical stress and the degree of the suppression was correlated with the extent of the stress. Analysis of lymphocyte phenotype revealed that CD16+ NK cells and CD8+CD11b+T cells decreased for 2 weeks followed by a decrease of CD4+T cells. Preoperative intratumoral injection of OK-432, PSK or rIL-2 induced an increase in number of killer cells in regional lymph nodes and reduced systemic immune suppression after surgery in gastric cancer patients. Three year survival rate of gastric cancer patients with curative resection after intratumoral injection of OK-432 was significantly higher than that of control subjects (88.9% vs 65.7%) in cases with rich lymphocyte infiltration into tumor. These results indicate that the preoperatively injected BRMs may attenuate the postoperative immune suppression and facilitate the elimination of residual tumor cells after surgery of malignant diseases.

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