The prognostic significance of natural killer cytotoxicity in patients with colorectal cancer
P. I. Tartter, B. Steinberg, D. M. Barron and G. Martinelli
Department of Surgery, Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, NY 10029.
We evaluate the prognostic significance of preoperative natural killer (NK)
cytotoxicity for K562 cells and its relationship to other prognostic
factors in 102 patients with colorectal cancer who underwent curative
resections between February 1984 and February 1985. The 18 patients who had
recurrences within two years of surgery had significantly higher numbers of
preoperative peripheral blood suppressor/cytotoxic and NK cells and
significantly lower preoperative NK cytotoxicity than disease-free
patients. Low preoperative NK cytotoxicity was predictive of recurrence
independent of age, sex, hematocrit, procedure, blood loss, duration of
surgery, Dukes' stage, specimen length, tumor size, tumor differentiation,
and post-operative therapy. Low levels of in vitro NK-cell cytotoxicity may
identify a subgroup of patients at high risk for recurrence.
