Acquired immune deficiency of cancer: Evaluation of NK cell number as a predictor of overall survival in breast cancer.

Abstract

e13003 Background: Cancer specialists, be they molecular geneticists or oncology clinicians, now accept the fact that a cancer results after a deleterious mutation in the apoptosis program AND failure of the immune system, innate (non-specific) and adaptive (specific), to eliminate the now abnormal transformed cell and it's progeny. Just as the acquired immune deficiency syndrome existed as a syndrome BEFORE the HIV virus was described, the disease AIDS/HIV was designated because the virus explained the syndrome and made HIV/AIDS a disease. We believe cancer works the same way. Cancer is a failure of surveillance by the immune system which leads to a disease, one we have described as AIDS/cancer (J Immunol May 1, 2019, 202, 1S, 182.79). Methods: Commercially available laboratory analysis of peripheral blood (Quest Diagnostics) and standard treatment protocols for breast cancer. Results: The immune system can be evaluated with samples of peripheral blood where cell subsets, antibody levels, etc. are measurable. Here we present results from over 200 unselected breast cancer patients, independent of Stage. All patients were treated with standard protocols. The initial number of NK cells in peripheral blood, but not other cell subsets or immunoglobulin levels, are a, and likely the, most significant predictor for survival. Kaplan Meier survival analysis, done when 20% of the entire population had died, showed that none of the patients in the upper quartile for NK cell number had died. Survival differences, comparing the top 50% vs. bottom 50% in initial NK number. were also highly significant (P < 0.05). Conclusions: We conclude that the innate immune system, reflected as numbers of NK cells in the blood are the most significant predictor of survival.