Natural killer cell activity of peripheral blood and bone marrow mononuclear cells from patients with childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Patients with untreated acute lymphoblastic leukemia had highly significantly reduced natural killer cell activity in peripheral blood (p less than 0.01) and bone marrow (p less than 0.001) mononuclear cells compared with that in peripheral blood mononuclear cells in normal healthy controls. Patients in remission had normal killer cell activity (p greater than 0.5) both in peripheral blood and bone marrow mononuclear cells. Thus, the natural killer cell activity correlated well with the disease activity in the patients.