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To clarify the immunological aspect of tuberculosis, we investigated serum adenosine deaminase (ADA) activity, T and B cell percentile in total peripheral mononuclear cells, peripheral T cell subpopulation and their relationship with other inflammatory parameters in 20 patients with active pulmonary tuberculosis. Serum ADA activity showed abnormal high level in all patients in nontreated phase with significant regression after three months treatment by anti-tuberculous drugs (P less than 0.05). In addition, significant positive correlation was observed between serum ADA activity and erythrocyte sedimentation rate at 1 hour (r = 0.56). Concerning about peripheral T cell subpopulation studied by two colour flow cytometry with FITC-conjugated anti-CD4 and phycoerythrin-conjugated anti-HLA-DR antibody, there was positive correlation between CD4(-) HLA-DR(+) T cell and serum ADA activity (r = 0.59) without any abnormal frequency of each T cell subpopulation. Additionally, after the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis, significant increase of T cell percentile in total peripheral mononuclear cells were observed (P less than 0.005). In conclusion, these results may suggest serum ADA activity could be a parameter of activity of pulmonary tuberculosis and reflect the function of activated suppressor/cytotoxic T cell.

Six cases of well-differentiated adenocarcinoma resembling fetal lung were studied histologically, immunohistochemically, and ultrastructurally, and compared with three cases of pulmonary blastoma. The six cases had no sarcomatous features, unlike the pulmonary blastoma. Individual tumor cells characteristically possessed clear cytoplasm with plentiful glycogen and were similar to the epithelial cells of the branching tubules in the pseudoglandular stage of the fetal lung, as well as the epithelial component of pulmonary blastoma. They also showed little differentiation toward mucous cells and ciliated cells. Although cells containing endocrine-type granules were not found ultrastructurally, a few tumor cells possessed the characteristics of endocrine cells, i.e., cytoplasm was immunohistochemically reactive with anticalcitonin and antigastrin-releasing peptide. Therefore, this type of adenocarcinoma is considered to have a histogenesis similar to that of pulmonary blastoma and may be a tumor with one-sided development of pulmonary blastoma showing only an epithelial component.

We measured the activity of aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase with L-dihydroxyphenylalanine as a substrate (DOPA decarboxylase) in normal lung tissues and lung tumors obtained fresh at surgery. The activity in control human lung tissues was low and variable: 3.50 +/- 0.42 pmole/min/mg protein (n = 56, mean +/- SE, range 0.01-15), indicating the wide individual variations. Most of small cell carcinoma specimens showed very high activity, as compared with both control lung tissues and with other types of non-SCC lung cancers. Similar results were also obtained in the athymic mice heterotransplants of SCC. High activity was also observed using 5-L-hydroxytryptophan as a substrate (5-HTP decarboxylase) in nine SCC samples. Serotonin was not detected in any control lung tissues, but was detected in all the nine SCC samples, but dopamine was detected only in three out of nine SCC samples.