Natural killer and lymphokine activated killer cell functions in Hodgkin's disease.

We report the natural killer (NK) and lymphokine activated killer (LAK) cell activities in peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) from untreated patients with Hodgkin's disease (HD) and from healthy donors. The frequency of LAK cell precursors was also studied using limiting dilution analysis (LDA). About 75% of the HD patients had normal NK activity. There was a higher percentage of low NK responders (mean percent NK activity of healthy donors--2 SD) in patients with lymphocyte depletion histologic grade of the disease and those who were in clinical stage IV, suggesting a correlation of decrease in NK activity with poor prognosis. We found efficient LAK activity against the NK-sensitive K562 cells and NK-resistant VIP (melanoma) and T-24 (bladder carcinoma) tumour targets in both low and normal NK responder HD patients, irrespective of the histopathological grade and clinical stage of the disease. In concordance with their good LAK cell activity, HD patients showed a frequency distribution of LAK cell progenitors in the PBL comparable to that of healthy donors.