Plenary lecture: lymphocytic infiltration in relationship to urologic tumors.

In summary, it may be said that, to date, among urologic tumors, seminoma is the only one in which lymphocytic and/or plasmacytic infiltration is known to improve the prognosis, and the available information on tumors of bladder, kidney, and prostate do not yet permit any statement relative to prognostic significance of inflammatory cell infiltration. When studying the relationship of lymphocytic and/or plasmacytic infiltration to tumors, it is essential for one to distinguish between cases in which the infiltration is in intimate relationship to the tumor cells and/or where the tumor cells show definite degenerative changes, e.g., seminoma, from those cases in which the inflammation is present at some distance from the tumor, e.g., chronic prostatis, and from those in which the inflammation is preexisting, e.g., schistosomiasis. Claims made about the prognostic significance of such infiltration should have adequate controls.