The Migratory Properties of Indium-111 Oxine Labelled Lymphocytes in Patients with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia

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Abstract
A new method for following the migration of autologous lymphocytes in normal subjects and patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is described. Indium 111 oxine is evidently a reliable radioactive cell label for in vivo studies of lymphocyte traffic in man. In normal subjects, in which 60-70% of the lymphocytes labeled are T cells, the lymphocytes leave the blood initially but later return to it. This is probably due to he reappearance of cells which at first entered the spleen. In CLL no such reappearance in the blood is seen and the lymphocytes do not leave the spleen in significant numbers over 48 h. This suggests that CLL B cells either do not recirculate through spleen or that their transit time is > 48 h. Bone marrow localization in CLL patients is greater than in normal subjects, suggesting that either a larger proportion of the neoplastic B lymphocytes enter this compartment or their transit time through it is longer than the transit time of a normal T cell predominant population. Localization in normal-sized lymph nodes in patients with CLL is less than that in the lymph nodes of normal subjects. This may be due to the greater propensity of T lymphocytes than B lymphocytes to enter lymph nodes or to the altered migratory properties of CLL B lymphocytes as compared with normal B cells.