Antibody dependent cytotoxicity in chronic active liver disease.

Twenty-six patients with chronic active liver disease (CALD) and a control group (8 patients with atrophic gastritis and 10 healthy people) underwent a microcytotoxicity (MCT) test using a primary line of human hepatocytes (5 1/2 month old human embryo) in the presence of rabbit complement. In 57.6% of the cases with CALD the test was positive (over 60% of hepatocytes lysed on contact with the patients' serum). The controls showed a negative MCT test, except for one case (12.5%) of atrophic gastritis. The positive results of the test in the CALD patients coincided with the evolutive stage of the disease and with obvious immune, humoral and cellularly, disturbances. The mechanism of the antibody dependent cytotoxicity mechanism in the hepatocytolysis in CALD is being demonstrated; the MCT test may be a marker of the evolution of the disease.