Table 6: Comparison of PMN chemotaxis in cancer patients prior to therapy or after local X-irradiation. Data for PMN from healthy controls (without irradiation) that were tested simultaneously with the other samples are presented in the last row. The chemotaxis numbers present the mean number of migrated PMN per high-power field after counting 20 high-power fields ± standard deviation.

Subjects

Number

<1000 Rad

Number

>1000 Rad

All cancer patients

10

126 ± 36.1

49

93 ± 30.2a

Head and Neck cancer patients

5

130 ± 23.2

11

108 ± 30.6

Other Cancer patients

5

122 ± 48.5

38

89 ± 29.0b

Untreated Healthy controls

10

129 ± 20.7

49

134 ± 33.8

ap<0.01 based on paired t-test with simultaneous healthy control samples.

bp<0.01 based on two sample t-test between irradiated and untreated patients.