[Difficulties in the application of Rye's classification to Hodgkin lymph nodes]

Rye's histological classification has been used the world over for the last 15 or so years in Hodgkin's disease but its practical application still poses numerous problems. These are related either to the border-line cases which separate the 4 Rye types or to the sub-classification of nodular sclerosis, or the problem of deciding whether certain classical or recently described histological entities can indeed be called Hodgkin's disease. The Rye classification allows a better approach to a positive and differential diagnosis of Hodgkin's disease and its prognostic and epidemiological usefulness is indisputable. This is to say that the criteria which define the four types should be more specific leaving less for subjectivity. Meanwhile, a collegial analysis of the histological data definitely improves the reliability of this system.