Pathological, histochemical and ultrastructural studies on sea-blue histiocytes and Gaucher-like cells in acquired lipidosis occurring in leukemia.

Smears of bone marrow aspiration from 82 patients with leukemia and major hematopoietic organs, such as bone marrow, spleen, liver and lymph nodes, obtained from 97 autopsy cases of the disease, were light-microscopically examined. As the results, occurrence of either sea-blue histiocytes or Gaucher-like cells, or of both, was observed in bone marrow smears of 23 patients and in the hematopoietic tissues of 44 out of the examined cases, particularly marked in those of chronic myelogenous leukemia. In acute myelogenous leukemia, these lipid storage cells were also confirmed though less in frequency or degree. Histochemically, the sea-blue histiocytes were substantiated to contain ceroid-like pigments in their cytoplasm uhile the lipid materials stored in the Gaucher-like cells were presumed to be glycolipids. Ultrastructural morphology of the inclusions in the sea-blue histiocytes uas almost consistent with that of ceroid previously reported, but showed more marked variegated and heterogeneous features. Intracytoplasmic inclusions of the Gaucher-like cells differed from those of Gaucher cells seen in Gaucher's disease and were dominated by fibrillar or linear deposits. Transitions from phagocytized leukemic cells to the inclusions characteristic of each type of the cells were traced.