Plasma transferable inhibition of BCG induced subcutaneous inflammation in human cancer.

When a small dacron sponge disc containing live BCG was implanted subcutaneously in healthy subjects it became infiltrated with leukocytes which at 24 hours mainly involved neutrophils. this mycobacterial-induced inflammatory response was markedly impaired in patients with cancer. This inhibitory effect could be reproduced by injecting the plasma of these patients into guinea-pigs bearing identical discs. The differences in inflammatory reactions in the indirect technique were less marked than in the direct test, though a parallelism between the two was seen. The fact that the plasma from cancer patients interferes with neutrophil responses in this way does not exclude the possibility that abnormal cellular functions were also operative. Since tumour growth control depends on effective inflammation these data further underline the importance in cancer patients of a defect at this level.