[Evaluation of the proliferation and line of lymphoid cells in various lymphoproliferative diseases using a double...

The increased range of the diagnostic criteria and the introduction of the classification scheme "Practical Formulation of Non-Hodgkin's Lymphomas for Clinical Application" made the authors to study proliferative potential of lymphoid cells with identification of the cell line affiliation. The investigation was carried out with the use of the double immunocytochemical test employing anti-nuclear (Ki-67) and line-specific monoclonal antibodies on peripheral blood lymphocytes, those of lymph nodes and bone marrow obtained from 40 patients with lymphoproliferative diseases and on the cells of lymphoblastoid line 501. The disease variant was classified according to the WHO criteria. The highest (> 60%) proliferative activity of lymphoid cells was found in the bone marrow in acute non-T non-B lymphoblast leukemia and in lymph node in T-cell and non-T non-B-cell lymphoblast lymphosarcoma. A broad range in the number of proliferative cells existed among B-cell lymphosarcomas of lymphoblast (12-73%) and prolymphocytic (0-91%) variants. Together with heterogeneous immunological phenotype, this reflects a wide spectrum of various nosological entities recognized by the WHO classification as lymphoblast and prolymphocytic variants of lymphosarcoma, says about the defects of the above classification. Extremely low (< 1%) percent of proliferative cells was observed in B-cell chronic lymphoid leukemia and hairy-cell leukemia. These differences in tumor cell proliferative potential in different lymphoproliferative diseases agree with the views on maturation and differentiation of lymphoid cells. The data obtained by the authors support the necessity of correcting routine histological data by immunological characteristics of pathological lymphoid cells, primarily, by introduction of data on cell proliferative activity.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)