Immunologic Studies in Malignant Lymphoma: Correlation with Histologic and Bonemarrow Changes

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Abstract
Transformation of peripheral blood lymphocytes in culture with and without phytohemagglutinin (PHA) stimulation and immunoglobulin changes were studied in 62 untreated patients with advanced malignant lymphoma. Attempts were made to correlate these findings with histologic and bone marrow changes. Thirty-three (55%) of the lymphoma patients had decreased transformation of lymphocytes with PHA (PHA-LT). Of these 33, 6 had marked increases in spontaneous transformation of lymphocytes in culture without PHA. A similar incidence of decreased PHA-LT was observed in histiocytic and lymphocytic lymphoma and Hodgkin's disease and in patients having primitive cell infiltration and lymphocytosis of the bone marrow (58, 56, 45, 75, and 61%). Mean PHA-LT in each group was significantly lower than in a control group of normal persons. Only 31% of the patients had nonspecific serum immunoglobulin changes without a definite pattern of monoclonal gammopathy. It is concluded from this study that in advanced malignant lymphoma, abnormal PHA-LT occurs more frequently than serum immunoglobulin changes. The abnormal PHA-LT possibly reflects the bone marrow involvement with malignant cell clones at a late stage of the disease.

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