[The relationship between the degree of dissemination of pharyngolaryngeal tumours and immunological changes (author's transl)].

An investigation was carried out on 34 patients with malignant pharyngolaryngeal tumours which had been operated on, microscopic changes in the regional ganglia (sinusal histocytosis, hypertrophy of the germinal centres, the paracortical area, the number of pyroninophilic plasmocytes, the behaviour of the mastocytes) and into certain cell immunity tests (the cytological formula of the inflammatory reaction in the cutaneous window, intracutaneous reaction to tuberculin, the time taken to reject normal skin homografts). The results were correlated with the presence or absence of ganglionic metastases. A relative correlation was found between the absence of metastasis, and manifest sinusal histiocytosis, the hypertrophied paracortical zone, the considerable number of young mastocytes, early mobilisation of macrophages, a normal amount of time taken to reject the cutaneous homograft. These tests enable certain prognostic conclusions to be drawn and draw attention to the need, in some cases, to build up the low level of immunity.