Lymphocyte counts and functions in arterial and venous splenic blood of patients with Hodgkin's disease. Evidence for elimination of spontaneously DNA synthesizing cells in the spleen.

Lymphocyte counts and functional competence of lymphocytes from arterial and venous splenic blood were studied in six patients with Hodgkin's disease subjected to splenectomy. One patient was untreated, four were tested after mantle field treatment and a sixth patient had a splenic relapse after total nodal radiotherapy. The percentage of E binding cells in splenic venous blood was lower than that of arterial blood though no significant differences were found in total lymphocyte or E binding cell counts. The spontaneous lymphocyte DNA synthesis was lower in venous than in arterial splenic lymphocytes in all patients. Pokeweed mitogen (PWM)-induced DNA synthesis was much lower in lymphocytes from splenic venous blood than in those from arterial blood in two patients and marginally decreased in another two. The pattern of concanavalin A response was similar to that of PWM. The elimination of lymphocytes over the spleen could not be related to the presence of lymphocytotoxic serum factors or to splenic weight or histologically verified tumour involvement. The results support the notion that some facets of the blood lymphocyte abnormalities in Hodgkin's disease may be explained by removal of functionally active lymphocyte subpopulations in the spleen. It is also concluded that spontaneously activated lymphoid cells are detained in the spleen.