Abstract :
Lung cancer is found to cause the inactivation of cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) and natural killer (NK) cells which are mostly found in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) and prevent host resistance to lung cancer growth. Thus, by knowing whether there is a decrease in PBMC count in lung cancer patients, immune cell therapy can be considered to increase host resistance towards lung cancer growth. PBMC samples from 3 lung cancer patients and 3 non-lung cancer patients were taken from Klinik Hayandra database with patient’s informed consent. PBMC were then counted and calculated for their viability and proportion with Trypan Blue Staining. PBMC proportion is significantly lower (p=0.002) in lung cancer patients (402,500) than patients without lung cancer (1,465,000). PBMC viability is significantly lower (p=0.015) in lung cancer patients (95.97%) than control group (98.84%). A significant decrease was found in both PBMC proportion and viability in patients with lung cancer than the control group.