Immunobiology of primary CNS tumors in infancy and childhood. B- and T-cell dependent immunity and cytotoxicity and cell kinetic evaluation

The authors report their experience on the immunological monitoring of children with posterior fossa medulloblastomas. The most important findings concerning humoral and cell-mediated immunity in this kind of patient are discussed. Among the main immunobiological pictures, the authors stress the remarkable failure of the T-cell dependent immune response, generally correlated to the degree of malignancy of the tumor, and the characteristic appearance of cells with natural cytotoxic activity, whose precise outlining is, at present, in progress. The B-cell dependent pool, mostly investigated through immunofluorescence studies, turned out to be very close to normal.