[Quantitative electron-microscopic analysis of the lymphocyte population in the peripheral blood of schizophrenic patients].

The author conducted a quantitative submicroscopic analysis of a population of recently isolated lymphocytes in the peripheral blood of schizophrenic patients. At the basis of the analysis there lies a subdivision of lymphocytes into 3 types according to their ultrastructure: narrow-plasmatic (I), widerplasmatic (II) and activated (III) cells. In the blood of schizophrenic patients the correlations of these cells were 54%, 24% and 22%, while the same figures for normals were 63%, 24% and 13%. These data may indicate that in schizophrenia the peripheral blood contains 1.7 times more activated lymphocytes than in normals. The activated lymphocytes possess an increased adhesiveness. They probably are atypical lymphocytes in the peripheral blood of schizophrenic patients which can be seen through an optical microscope.