[Decrease in immunoreactivity in melanoma. Analysis of DNCB tests in the literature].

It is generally accepted that cell mediated immunity is impaired in melanoma patients. Several studies, however, could not confirm this thesis, especially in early malignancy. Therefore, it was the aim of our study to evaluate the results of the DNCB skin tests in melanoma patients of the literature. DNCB sensitization lineally decreased with increasing tumor progression. The difference of the sensitization rates between controls and stage I patients and between melanoma stage I and stage II was significant (p less than 0.001). The difference between stage II patients and stage III melanoma was apparent; statistical analysis, however, could not be done, because the results of three out of six evaluated studies where contradictory. The results confirm the thesis of impaired delayed type immunity in the course of tumor progression and support the therapeutic approaches of immune modulation in tumor patients: BCG vaccination, DNCB sensitization, interferon application.