Stage-related, cell-mediated cytotoxicity with effector cell analysis and computation of cytotoxic activity of T cells and non-T cells.

Cell-mediated cytotoxicity (CMC) by lymphocytes from patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma, as well as from nonmalignant control donors, was tested by a microcytotoxicity assay against a cultured cell line derived from an oral squamous cell carcinoma. In terms of the degree of CMC, stage-related cytotoxicity was observed. A further study of the effector cell analysis revealed that the cytotoxic effects of lymphocytes from both patients and control donors were largely attributable to non-T cells. However, the effectors were also stage related, and in early stage patients, T-cell-mediated cytotoxicity was super-imposed on non-T-cell-mediated cytotoxicity. This conclusion was further supported by the evidence of elevated cytotoxic activity of T cells in early stage patients, which was computed from simultaneous equations proposed in the present paper for computing the cytotoxic activity of T cells (CTA_T) and non-T cells (CTA_non-T).