Cellular immunity to human breast carcinoma

An in vitro microassay technique was used to study the cellular immunological response of 16 breast carcinoma patients against tumor‐associated antigens. The in vitro growth of target cells was achieved with five pleural effusions of patients with breast carcinoma infiltration of the pleura. The lymphocytes obtained from the peripheral blood of three of the five target cell donors had a specific killing effect on autochthonous cancer cells. The lymphocytes of nine of the 13 other patients killed at least one of the target tumor‐cell lines. No cyto‐toxicity was observed with the lymphocytes of five out of six patients with a benign lesion of the breast, of three patients with a carcinoma other than of the breast, and of one patient without tumor.