Kinetics of indium-111-labelled T lymphocytes in a patient with adult T-cell leukaemia.

Clinical studies using indium-111 oxine labelling of leukaemic T lymphocytes from a patient with adult T-cell leukaemia are presented. Leukaemic T lymphocytes did not take less than 48 h to traverse the spleen. This result was different from that of normal subjects, in which T lymphocytes continue to fall up to 44 h after the initial rise. Liver activity was seen to accumulate progressively up to 68 h. This could be explained by the infiltration of the liver by T lymphocytes or phagocytosis of damaged T lymphocytes due to Kupffer cells. Leukaemic T lymphocytes entered the enlarged, inguinal lymph nodes at 3 h and left after 68 h, but few T lymphocytes crossed the axillary lymph nodes, which were enlarged as much as the inguinal lymph nodes. This observation suggests that the degree of migration of leukaemic T lymphocytes to each lymph node differs.