[Colchicine sensitivity index: a means of distinguishing benign and malignant lymphocytic cutaneous infiltrates (author's transl)].

Lymphocytes in patients with chronic lymphatic leukaemia and other malignant lymphomas have an abnormally high sensitivity to colchicine in vitro. This can be expressed in a colchicine-sensitivity index and used diagnostically. Lymphocytes isolated from cutaneous infiltrates in mycosis fungoides, a cutaneous malignant T-cell lymphoma, had an increased colchicine-sensitivity index of 44 (P < 0.01). On the other hand, lymphocytes from cutaneous infiltrates of reactive inflammatory dermatitis cases had an index of 23. It would seem that the colchicine-sensitivity index is helpful in the diagnosis of selected cases of cutaneous malignant lymphomas.