Chemiluminescence in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of solid tumor cancer patients

Summary Levels of chemiluminescence were measured in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from normal subjects and from solid tumor cancer patients. Patients with advanced malignant disease were found to have significantly elevated baseline chemiluminescence activity in their resting PBMC as compared to normal subjects or to cancer patients with, at most, minimum residual disease. Patients with either advanced disease or minimum residual disease, however, were found to exhibit significantly elevated activation of chemiluminescence by treatment of cells with phorbol myristic acetate (PMA). Treatment of surgically resected stage I lung cancer patients with Freund's complete adjuvant alone or emulsified with extracted lung cancer antigens was found to elevate chemiluminescence levels in patient PBMC. Serum from those vaccinated patients was found to elevate chemiluminescence levels of resting PBMC from normal subjects. That serum activity did net correlate with levels of immune complexes measurable in the Clq or Raji cell assay.