| Abstract
| - The effect of cimetidine on the natural killer (NK) activity of peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) of 32 patients with ovarian carcinoma was studied before and after surgery or chemotherapy. There was no significant difference in the NK activity between normal healthy women and patients who had been disease-free for more than a year after initial surgery, while those in patients with a large residual tumor after surgery were profoundly suppressed. Cimetidine stimulated the NK activity in the disease-free patients in vivo or in Vitro. In addition, cimetidine augmented the response to phytohemagglutinin of PBL from the disease-free patients. The NK activity of PBL of patients with a large residual tumor under chemotherapy consisting of cisplatinum, adriamycin and cyclophosphamide, “CAP,” was about half of that before initiation of chemotherapy. The inhibition of the NK activity by chemotherapy was abrogated by in vitro exposure of the PBL to cimetidine.
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