Cell-mediated immunity as an early diagnostic test for osteosarcoma in human radium cases

Lymphocytes from patients carrying a body burden greater than 0.3 μCi of 226Ra have been tested for specific cytotoxicity to four different osteosarcoma cell lines as well as to normal human fibroblasts. Cytotoxicity indexes (defined as the ratio of the number of target cells remaining, after treatment with the patients' lymphocytes, relative to the values obtained with normal control subjects) have been calculated. With one exception no cytotoxicity was observed. This is in agreement with the fact that no fresh osteosarcomas were diagnosed. The patient in whom cytotoxicity was found was suffering from an inflammatory lesion involving bone as the result of a foreign-body reaction at the time of the first test. When the test was repeated 10 months later, no cytotoxicity was observed. No significant nonspecific cytotoxicity was observed when lymphocytes from normal control subjects were interacted with any of the target cell lines