Peripheral blood levels of cellular and humoral immunity parameters in esophageal and gastric cancer patients

Aim: To evaluate parameters of cellular and humoral immunity in gastric and esophageal cancer patients. Material and methods: In this study, we recruited 40 patients with newly diagnosed esophageal cancer (20 of them) or stomach cancer (20 of them) and 20 healthy individuals of similar age as a control group. In the study and control groups we measured CD3, CD4, CD8, CD19, CD4/CD8 ratio and the ratio of natural killer cells using the flow cytometer device. Results were evaluated with factorial analysis of variance and Duncan test. Results: The CD3 and CD8 ratios were significantly higher in patients with esophageal cancer (p = 0.012, p = 0.003, respectively) and the ratio of NK cells was significantly higher in patients with stomach cancer (p = 0.001) when compared to the control group. The ratio of CD19 was significantly lower in the two cancer groups (p = 0.031). There were no significant differences in the ratio of CD4 and CD4/CD8 between the groups. No correlation between the stage of cancer and the ratio of CD cells was detected. Discussion: In conclusion, understanding of the cancer immunology of esophageal and stomach cancer will provide insight into the pathogenesis of the cancer Therefore, further and extensive cancer immunology studies should be conducted to understand the nature of the upper gastrointestinal tract cancers