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SUMMARY The discipline and techniques of immunology have been an important part of recent advances in genitourinary oncology. Although the initial promise of tumor immunology has not been realized in man, discoveries in the laboratory are revitalizing the expectation that this field will yet be of significant assistance in the diagnosis and treat ment of cancer. Already tumor immunology studies along with new immunologic assay techniques have produced clinically important tumor markers, such as alpha-fetoprotein, human chorionic gonadotropin, and prostatic acid phosphatase, and have intensified the search for other markers. Finally, research activity is increasingly focusing on the tumor cell itself, again often using immunologic methods. Although most of this activity is still experimental, analysis of bloodgroup antigens in transitional cell carcinoma has produced sufficient data to suggest that such an approach will soon be a part of the urologist’s clinical armamentarium in his efforts to treat patients with bladder tumors.

A fast functional assay for protein C was evaluated and compared with a traditional functional and an enzyme linked immunosorbent assay in parallel for the same plasma samples derived from 43 healthy subjects, 12 patients with severe hepatic dysfunction, and 23 patients under stable oral anticoagulation. By all three test systems significantly lower levels of protein C were obtained in both groups of patients compared with normal subjects (p less than 0.0001). No significant between - assay differences were found in normal subjects and in patients with hepatic dysfunction; by correlation analysis coefficients higher than 0.8 were calculated between the measurements of the three tests. In patients under stable oral anticoagulation, however, the immunologic test yielded higher values than the traditional (p less than 0.05) and, more pronounced, the fast functional assay (p less than 0.0001); no or only borderline significant correlations between the results were found. In these patients protein C levels measured with the traditional functional assay were in the same range as the activity levels of factors II, VII, IX, and X, whereas the fast functional test yielded significantly lower levels. The presented results indicate that very similar protein C levels were obtained with both functional and the immunologic assay except in patients under oral anticoagulation.

This investigation was undertaken to determine the prevalence and degree of malnutrition among patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and to determine if a relationship exists between nutritional assessment parameters and pulmonary function. Thirty-seven patients admitted for the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to a respiratory care unit of a Veterans Administration facility were studied. Nutritional status was evaluated using anthropometric measurements, laboratory data and immunologic assay. Deficits in anthropometric measurements were frequent and severe in this group of patients. Furthermore, our data demonstrated that patients with a forced vital capacity

A kindred with a history of multiple thromboses was studied for coagulant abnormalities. A deficiency of serum antithrombin III was found in approximately half of the 13 family members by either coagulant or immunologic assay. No clear relationship between antithrombin III deficiency and a history of thrombosis was present. Platelet antithrombin assays were also studied in the same subjects. Ten of the 13 members were deficient. None of the remaining three had a history of thrombosis. On the basis of these findings, the hypothesis is proposed that in some cases familial hypercoagulability may be due to a platelet antithrombin deficiency and that the serum antithrombin III deficiency in some cases is a secondary rather than a primary effect.

Current assay methods do not define the absolute concentrations of calcitonin in plasma of normal man. In our experience, the concentration was