Monocytes and histiocytes in cell cultures of cerebrospinal fluid. Morphology of cultured CSF cells.

A method of CSF cell culturing, based on observations of cultured cells isolated from 700 CSF specimens obtained for routine diagnostic procedures by lumbar puncture from patients who had no proven or suspected neoplastic disease, is described which enables the demonstration of proliferating mononuclear elements even when they are present in specimens with low cell count. Spread on surfaces of plastic and glass material, monocytes and histiocytes in CSF cell cultures can appear as polygonal or crescent shaped epitheloid cells, may assume spindle shapes, or transform into multinucleated giant cells. Some cells given rise to clones with different rates of proliferation, up to the formation of a monolayer. After short term culturing the cytochemical characteristics of the cells are comparable to those of the native cells. Phagocytosis in culture is possible. Cells with a high rate of proliferation can be isolated from CSF specimens in subacute non-bacterial inflammatory processes, in chronic meningitis, in the state of repair of bacterial meningitis and subarachnoid hemorrhage, after repeated lumbar punctures and other unspecific irritations such as myelography and pneumencephalography, and in the course of intrathecal cytostatic therapy.