Splenic T and B lymphocytes and their mitogenic response in untreated Hodgkin's disease.

The splenic T and B cell distribution in 79 patients with untreated Hodgkin's disease was quite similar to that in 15 control patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma or carcinoma. The mean T lymphocyte percentage was slightly higher in involved spleens than in uninvolved spleens of patients with Hodgkin's disease. There was no significant difference in the T and B cell distribution between tumor area and tumor-free area of the same spleens of Hodgkin's disease patients. Splenic T and B cell distribution did not correlate well with the clinical features of Hodgkin's disease. The splenic T cell percentage was significantly lower than that of the peripheral blood T cell percentage (P less than 0.05), while the splenic B cell percentage was significantly higher than peripheral blood B cell percentage (P less than 0.01) in 13 patients with untreated Hodgkin's disease. The splenic T lymphocyte response to PHA was significantly higher than the peripheral blood T lymphocyte response (P less than 0.05), and the splenic B lymphocyte response to PHA, in the presence of irradiated autologous splenic T lymphocytes, was also significantly higher than the peripheral blood B lymphocyte response (P less than 0.05) in 8 and 6 patients with untreated Hodgkin's disease, respectively. Since the control splenic cells, utilized in this study were obtained not from patients with non-neoplastic disease, but from patients with neoplastic disease other than Hodgkin's disease, our data are not conclusive, but only suggestive of normal T and B cell distribution and function in uninvolved spleens of patients with untreated Hodgkin's disease.