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 , I I NATURAL KILLER (NK) CELL ACTIVITY ASSESSMENT AND NK CELL ACTIVATION BY RHIL-2 IN PATIIIVTS WIM LUNG CANCER Zhane Oiu-wang, Yang Ying, Cheng Xiang-yang, Fang Xiang, Mo Shu-xia and Liang Xi-ruo Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Guangzhou Medical College, Guangzhou, China I I I I I I I I 1 I Although many forms of cancer are known to suppress the host's immune functions, the immune status in lung cancer patients remaius unknown. Accordingly, the present studies are carried to study the NK cell activity in lung cancer patients. We used the 3H-TdR release method to investigate 19 lung cancer subjects who had not received anticancer drugs or immunotherapy. Cases consisted of 12 squamous cell carcinomas (11 men and 1 woman) and 7 adenocarcinomas (3 men and 4 women) with a mean age of 54.7 years, while 13 normal volunteers (10 men and 3 women) with a mean age of 56.0 years served as controls. The patients' NK activity (23.7±10.3%) was found to be significantly lower than that of controls (41.3±6.5%; P<0.001); but there was no difference between the squamous cell carcinoma group (24.1 t 11.696) and the adenocarcinoma group (23.2 f 8.3%; P> 0.5). When NK cells of subjects (11 squamous and 7 adenous) were treated in vitro by rhIL-2, the depressed NK cell activity in both groups improved remarkably (In the squamous group, NK activity went from 22.5±10.7% to 55.7±7.3%, P<0.001, whereas in the adenocarcinoma group, NK cell activity was increased from 23.2±8.3% to 54.3±11.2%, P<0.001. Our results suggest that lung cancer patients have impaired NK activity which was partially restored to normal value by rhIL-2. I