Evaluation of leukocyte adherence inhibition (LAI) test in primary and secondary hepatic malignancies.

Leukocyte adherence inhibition (LAI) has been demonstrated to be a simple, rapid, and reliable technique in the diagnosis of various malignancies including hepatocellular carcinoma. The LAI test was carried out employing modified tube LAI technique in patients with primary hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and secondary carcinomas of liver. Positive LAI response to HCC antigen was obtained in all six (100%) cases of hepatocellular carcinoma tested. None of the control cases, which included 8 healthy subjects and 16 cases of benign liver diseases, gave positive LAI response. Two out of 19 cases of secondary carcinoma gave a positive LAI reaction to HCC antigen. In secondary carcinomas, 19 out of 21 cases (90.48%) gave positive LAI reaction to secondary adenocarcinoma antigen. There were two false positives in controls (1 each of cirrhosis and amebic liver abscess), and 1 out of 8 cases of HCC also gave positive response to secondary carcinoma antigen. Thus, LAI test was found to be useful in the diagnosis of hepatic malignancies.