Migration of Peripheral Leukocytes in the Presence of Carcinoembryonic Antigen. Studies in Patients with Chronic Inflammatory Diseases of the Intestine and Carcinoma of the Colon and Pancreas

Abstract

Summary

The leukocyte migration technique was employed to study in vitro cell-mediated immune responses to purified CEA in patients with Crohn's disease and active ulcerative colitis and in those with colonic and pancreatic carcinoma.

No significant inhibition of leukocyte migration was demonstrated by CEA, with the exception of one patient with pancreatic carcinoma. Thus, with the leukocyte migration technique, no consistent in vitro cell-mediated immunity to CEA was demonstrated supporting the hypothesis that CEA is not the antigen toward which cell-mediated host response phenomena are directed.

The authors wish to thank Jacques Vandevoorde, of the Hoffmann-La Roche Research Division, Nutley, NJ, for performing the radioimmunoassays for CEA and Carlos Pereira for skillful technical assistance.

These studies were supported under U.S.P.H.S. Grant No. Al 09857, a N.I.H. Training Grant (AM-05126), and Mount Sinai Clinical Genetics Center Grant No. GM 19-443.