The presence of erythroid cells in the thymus gland of man.

Biopsies of the right lobe of normal thymus glands without signs of neoplasia or germinal centre formation from 35 patients ranging in age from 20 to 60 years of age, and from 3 children aged 6, 7 and 12, showed on electron microscopic examination of the material from 14 patients that in 12 cases erythroid cells of all stages of development past the beginning of haemoglobinisation were present in some degree. Earlier erythroid cells could not be identified on morphological grounds with certainty, but cells which could have been lymphoblasts, proerythroblasts and stem cell were all observed. A section of a megakaryocyte was seen in one thymus. The importance of erythropoiesis within the thymus gland is briefly discussed.