We investigated lipopolysaccharide-induced tumor necrosis factor production in vitro by peripheral blood monocytes from patients with various liver diseases. Tumor necrosis factor production was found to be significantly reduced in patients with chronic hepatitis B (n = 17; 135 +/- 30 pg tumor necrosis factor/ml; mean +/- S.E.M.) and patients with chronic non-A, non-B hepatitis (n = 15; 212 +/- 22 pg tumor necrosis factor/ml) compared with healthy control individuals (n = 47; 411 +/- 40 pg tumor necrosis factor/ml; p less than 0.0005 and p less than 0.01, respectively). This reduced tumor necrosis factor production was not only seen with an optimal stimulating concentration of lipopolysaccharide (100 ng/ml) but also with suboptimal concentrations (0.1 ng/ml). In contrast to patients with chronic viral hepatitis, monocytes from patients with alcohol-induced cirrhosis (n = 26; 444 +/- 49 pg tumor necrosis factor/ml), primary biliary cirrhosis (n = 7; 412 +/- 81 pg tumor necrosis factor/ml) and alcohol-induced fatty liver changes (n = 5; 401 +/- 62 pg tumor necrosis factor/ml) produced normal amounts of tumor necrosis factor when stimulated with an optimal concentration of lipopolysaccharide. Lipopolysaccharide (0.1 ng lipopolysaccharide/ml)-stimulated peripheral blood monocytes of patients with chronic hepatitis B (n = 15; 102 +/- 32 pg/ml) or non-A, non-B hepatitis (n = 13; 97+/- 16 pg/ml) could not be induced to produce more tumor necrosis factor either when prestimulated with gamma-interferon (170 +/- 45 pg/ml and 149 +/- 32 pg/ml, respectively), a lymphokine known to activate monocytes, or with the cyclooxygenase inhibitor indomethacin to reduce the suppressive effect of prostaglandin E2 (148 +/- 40 pg/ml and 153 +/- 45 pg/ml, respectively.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)