Osmotic fragility of peripheral blood lymphocytes in chronic lymphatic leukemia and malignant lymphoma.

The osmotic fragility (OF) of peripheral blood lymphocytes from patients with chronic lymphatic leukemia (CLL) and non-Hodgkin malignant lymphoma (ML) was investigated employing an automatic recording method and compared with that of lymphocytes from healthy subjects and from patients suffering from various non-neoplastic diseases. The curves from CLL and ML showed a pattern of increased lymphocyte OF compared with those of the two control groups, and the difference was statistically significant ( less than 0.001). In CLL the increase in OF was more pronounced than in ML, and the shape of the curve was different from that in the other groups. The employment of peripheral blood lymphocyte OF as an additional diagnostic parameter in the diagnosis of CLL and ML is suggested.