In vitro demonstration of cell-mediated immunity to human brain tumors.

Abstract

Our studies showed that patients with primary intracranial neoplasms, both well differentiated and anaplastic, intra- and extracerebral, possessed peripheral blood lymphocytes that in vitro were specifically cytotoxic to tissue-cultured, autogenous tumor cells. Some studies suggested antigenic cross-reactivity between glioblastoma cells from different patients and, moreover, between glioblastoma and melanoma cells. One melanoma patient possessed lymphocytes cytotoxic to his tumor cells and to allogeneic glioblastoma cells, as well as to the tumor cells and normal glial cells, but not to the normal fibroblasts, of a patient with a ganglioglioma.