Lymphocyte-mediated cytotoxicity against gliomas.

The effects of peripheral blood lymphocytes from patients with glioma on glioma cells grown in culture was studied using an in vitro microcytotoxicity test. Lymphocytes from 12 of the 20 patients studied showed significant cytotoxic activity against their own tumour cells. Four of them reacted against heterologous glioma cells and 4 also showed some reactivity against foetal brain cells. An attempt to correlate in vitro cytotoxicity with the degree of lymphocytic infiltration of the tumour suggested an association, but the number of cases examined was too small to achieve statistical significance.