Functional aspects of T-cells from patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Responses to self, TNP-modified self, and alloantigens.

Peripheral blood T-cell proliferative responses to autologous non-T cells, Trinitrophenyl-modified autologous non-T cells, and allogeneic lymphocytes were measured in 27 patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) and 22 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. The NHL patients were not receiving chemotherapy or immunosuppressive drugs at the time of the study and had not received such agents for at least 3 weeks prior to the study. Responses to autologous non-T cells (the autologous mixed lymphocyte reaction [AMLR] ) and to TNP-modified non-T cells were significantly lower in NHL patients than in controls (P less than 0.00002 and P less than 0.0001, respectively), but responses to alloantigens were not significantly different between the NHL patients and the controls (P greater than 0.85). There was no definite correlation of low AMLR responses with disease activity, and normal AMLR responses did not define a subgroup of patients relative to histopathologic findings. The deficiency of AMLR in NHL patients appears to be due to a disturbance in the T-cell compartment.