Lymphoid cells infiltrating human pulmonary tumors: effect of intralesional BCG injection.

Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) and regional lymph node lymphocytes (LNL) were isolated by mechanical disaggregation and density gradient centrifugation from 30 untreated human lung tumors and 12 BCG-injected human lung tumors. Lymphocyte populations were characterized by their ability to form erythrocyte (E)-rosettes, erythrocyte-antibody-complement, and erythrocyte-antibody gamma-rosettes, by their proportion of esterase-staining cells, and by their responses in mixed lymphocyte culture (MLC), cell-mediated lympholysis (CML). and natural killer (NK) assays. TIL from untreated tumors had low proportions of E-rosetting cells (mean, 27.3%), relatively high proportions of "null" cells, and poor responses in MLC-CML and NK assays. There were no significant differences between primary lung tumors and lung metastases in rosettes, MLC-CML responses, or NK activity. In contrast, TIL from tumors injected with BCG 14 days before resection had higher proportions of E-rosetting cells (47.8%) and vigorous MLC-CML and NK responses. LNL from 11 patients with untreated tumors had higher proportions of E-rosetting cells (40.5%) than LNL from 9 patients with BCG-injected tumors (35.0%) and LNL from patients with untreated tumors had higher responses than LNL from treated patients in MLC-CML assays. These results suggest that the BCG injection induced an infiltration of functionally reactive NK and T-cells at the tumor site without an associated increased activity of T-cells from regional lymph nodes.