Effect of sera from patients with Hodgkin's disease on normal lymphocyte response to phytohemagglutinin

✍ Scribed by Tin Han

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1972
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 474 KB
• Volume: 29
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0008-543X
• DOI: 10.1002/1097-0142(197206)29:6<1626::aid-cncr2820290629>3.0.co;2-s

✦ Synopsis

The i n vitro responses of normal lymphocytes t o phytohemagglutinin (PHA) were determined simultaneously with normal homologous serum a n d serum from 63 patients with Hodgkin's disease. W e have been unable to demonstrate any inhibitory effect of Hodgkin's serum on P H A response of normal lymphocytes, with the exception of one category of experiments in which sera from patients with active symptomatic disease undergoing therapy appeared to be inhibitory. The most consistent inhibition was seen with sera from patients receiving 30-40 mg of prednisone per day. These data indicate that the inhibitory effects i n this group of experiments were related to the treatment rather than to the disease. T h i s system of P H A response of lymphocytes does not provide consistently reproducible results. A number of apparently s i g nificant stimulatory or inhibitory effects of Hodgkin's serum, which were observed in the initial experiments, could not be confirmed i n subsequent experimen ts.

ODCKIN'S DISEASE IS A DISORDER CHARACTER-

H ized by abnormal cellular immunomechanisms, including impaired delayed type skin test responses,17 impaired ability to reject skin homografts,l depressed reactivity to skin-sensitizing chemicals,e and impaired in vitro lymphocyte response to phytohemagglutinin (PHA) and specific

T h e impairment of lymphocyte response in Hodgkin's disease was considered to be a manifestation of lymphocyte defects by some investigators.*,s.l1.l2,*O However, others19 have attributed this defective response to inhibitory humoral factors rather than to lymphocyte defects.

We have studied the in vitro PHA response to lymphocytes cultured in the presence of fetal calf serum from 78 patients with various clinical features of Hodgkin's disease. T h e PHA response was normal among patients in