The role of insulin-related substance in Hodgkin's disease.

An insulin-related growth-promoting substance was detected in the serum of a patient with Hodgkin's disease who suffered from severe hypoglycaemia, as well as in the supernatant of homogenized spleen tissue of the same patient. Low concentrations of this substance enhanced DNA synthesis of short-term-cultured spleen tumour cells obtained from the same patient, while the addition of anti-insulin antiserum interfered with that effect. Moreover, the preincubation of this insulin-related substance with the anti-insulin antiserum abrogated its stimulatory effect on tumour cell proliferation. Both insulin and the insulin-related substance bound to patients splenocytes to a similar extent. The data suggest that the insulin-related substance, found in this particular case of Hodgkin's disease, plays a role in tumour progression by an autocrine mechanism.