STUDIES IN CHRONIC LYMPHOCYTIC-LEUKEMIA - KINETICS OF CR-51-LABELED LYMPHOCYTES

  • 1 January 1978
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 20  (1) , 37-51
Abstract
Nine studies of lymphocyte transport are reported in which the Hersey 51Cr labeling technique was employed on 8 patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and 1 with lymphosarcoma. A new approach to the analysis of the data was formulated employing the principles of impulse analysis. This allowed the quantitation of cell transport between various locations making the minimum number of assumptions. It was also possible to take account of the principal defect of this label, its tendency to elute from live cells. Despite marked lymphocytosis, numbers of cells moving between those tissues whose lymphocytes exchange relatively slowly and the bloodstream was normal. The blood and lymph nodes may accumulate lymphocytes in response to a transport defect which hinders the progress of these cells from one pool to another. The finding that CLL lymphocyte fluxes are normal in certain locations shows that lymphocyte proliferation may not be uncontrolled in this disease. An alternative possibility is that cell proliferation is regulated so as to maintain these fluxes within the normal range.