Background: In current medical science the reactive oxygen intermediates play an ever more important role.
Methods: The authors analysed superoxide anion production of polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNLs) in 30 blood samples from endometrial carcinoma patients. They measured it before the complex treatment and in nine cases at least 1 year after finishing the treatment. The results were compared with healthy controls. Phorbol dibutyrate stimulated superoxide anion production was measured spectrophotometrically as superoxide dismutase inhibitable reduction of ferricytochrome-c absorbance.
Results: The mean superoxide anion production of PMNLs of the 31 healthy controls was 1.541 nM/min/10(5)cells (S.D.=0.201 nM/min/10(5)cells). Superoxide anion production of samples from endometrial cancer patients was much lower. The superoxide anion production of granulocytes in the early stage of endometrial cancer was lower (1.11 nM/min/10(5)cells) as in the controls. There was no essential difference in the superoxide production of patients with different depths of myometrial infiltration. After treatment, the superoxide anion production of the granulocytes of the clinically tumour-free patient had substantially progressed (1.357 nM/min/10(5)cells), but it was henceforth lower than the control.
Conclusions: According to our results, damage to the non-specific immunity is already advanced at the earliest stage of endometrial cancer. Further examinations are needed to decide how to normalise the superoxide production of granulocytes, and whether it has any importance in prevention and therapy.