Takashi Fujibayashi

Tuberculosis of the tongue. A case report with immunologic study.

A case of tuberculosis of the tongue in a 59-year-old woman with active pulmonary tuberculosis is described. The lingual tuberculosis was considered to be a secondary infection from the pulmonary disease, but the oral lesions were, in fact, noticed prior to recognition of the pulmonary lesion. This case was marked by a multiplicity or oral lesions arising on the bilateral surfaces of the tongue. Immunologic investigation revealed that cell-mediated immune responses in the patient were within the normal range in terms of the PPD skin test, DNCB skin test, lymphocyte transformation test, and subpopulation of the peripheral blood lymphocytes. Rosette-forming assay on the frozen sections disclosed that T-lymphocytes and macrophages were predominant in the lymphoid cells infiltrating the tuberculous lesion.

Stage-related, cell-mediated cytotoxicity with effector cell analysis and computation of cytotoxic activity of T Cells and non-T cells

Abstract Cell-mediated cytotoxicity (CMC) by lymphocytes from patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma, as well as from nonmalignant control donors, was tested by a microcytotoxicity assay against a cultured cell line derived from an oral squamous cell carcinoma. In terms of the degree of CMC, stage-related cytotoxicity was observed. A further study of the effector cell analysis revealed that the cytotoxic effects of lymphocytes from both patients and control donors were largely attributable to non-T cells. However, the effectors were also stage related, and in early stage patients, T-cell-mediated cytotoxicity was super-imposed on non-T-cell-mediated cytotoxicity. This conclusion was further supported by the evidence of elevated cytotoxic activity of T cells in early stage patients, which was computed from simultaneous equations proposed in the present paper for computing the cytotoxic activity of T cells (CTA T ) and non-T cells (CTA non-T ).