Evaluation of cytokine levels in whole cell cultures of patients with gynaecological tumors as diagnostic parameters

Abstract

The measurement of the cytokine production of activated lymphocytes and monocytes supposedly provides a tool for evaluating the actual status of the cellular immunity potential of a person. We measured the levels of IFN-gamma and IL-1-alpha in the 4 day post-induction supernatants of mitogen-stimulated unseparated blood cell cultures by a rapid and sensitive immunoassay using various monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies. With this reproducible and easy-to-handle system we tested 90 patients with primary gynaecological tumors and the same number of age-matched female controls. In the blood cell cultures of the tumor patients significantly lower values of IFN-gamma and IL-1-alpha were observed, although lymphocyte and monocyte counts were almost normal. There was also a difference in the IFN-gamma-levels between the four tumors, in as much as patients with ovarian and endometrial carcinomas had significantly lower values than patients with breast and cervical carcinomas.