Various studies performed in chronic alcoholic patients have demonstrated immunologic alterations, which have been described more often in patients with alcoholic hepatitis or liver cirrhosis. We have observed that the serum of some patients with alcoholic liver cirrhosis produces the inhibition of E rosette formation by T lymphocytes. This observation induced us to study E rosette formation and its probable inhibition by the serum of chronic alcoholic patients. Subjects were split into three groups: Group 1: n = 21. Normal individuals. Group 2: n = 15. Chronic alcoholic patients without cirrhosis. Group 3: n = 26. Chronic alcoholic patients with histologically demonstrated liver cirrhosis. E rosette and E rosette inhibition (TIRE) sera tests were performed utilizing subject's sera tested against lymphocytes of normal individuals not related to group 1. The results found are listed in detail in Table 1 (mean = -SD) and Figure 1 (median), for each of the test groups. We applied unifactorial variance analysis and observed highly significant differences between the groups studied in all tests performed. It was found that tests that utilized I.E. discriminate most efficiently among the three groups of patients and that those which utilize unabsorbed assay serum (S/A) yield the best differentiation. Using this last assay it was observed that 20/21 control individuals showed less than 15% inhibition. On this basis, we decided to separate the results into 15% regular intervals (Table 3). Inhibition above 30% was found only in cirrhotic patients with the exception of one individual of the control group and one non-cirrhotic alcoholic patient with no alcoholic liver disease.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)