[The significance of histologic assessment of the bone marrow in Hodgkin's disease].

The spreading of Hodgkin's disease in the bone marrow is of primary diagnostic significance in respect of its quantity as well as its quality, and therefore has to be taken into account from the initial staging procedure. The iliac crest is the most suitable site of the biopsy, the diagnostic significance of which depends on the adequate size of the specimen and on the technical standard of the histologic embedding with methacrylate, affording perfect semithin sections without decalcification. The prognostic value of the statement of Hodgkin's disease spreading in the marrow deserves further careful evaluation. A nonspecific reaction of the marrow against extramedullary lymphogranulomatosis closely resembling to the so-called tumor myeopathy has to be distinguished from the localized marrow changes due to the tumor itself. The former is depending primarily of the progress of the disease, the latter of its type as well. The well-known histologic classification covers the changes of the bone marrow due to Hodgkin's disease also. The different histologic types however exhibit a varying tendency of expansion within the bone. Generally the marrow involvement is accompanied with more severe clinical and hematological symptoms. The bone is altered mostly in the very region of the infiltration. This is not the consequence of direct tumorous destruction but of stimulation of environmental mesenchymal activities. Parenchymal and mesenchymal changes of the bone marrow, either directly or indirectly connected with the lymphogranulomatosis, are considered primarily as sequelae of the basic disease. The very close structural relationship between the original lymphogranulomatosus growth and these changes is one of the characteristics of Hodgkin's disease. As yet, there is no unequivocal pointer to structural characteristics whose appearance can exert an obstructive or stimulating effect on the lymphogranuloma tissue, apart from the number of lymphocytes and normal histiocytes in the specific infiltrate itself. Our observations of a special role of megakaryocytes in this connection deserve further attention.