Infiltration of eosinophils in Hodgkin's disease involved lymph nodes predicts prognosis.

The number of infiltrating eosinophils were counted in tumour specimens from an unselected material of 140 cases of primary Hodgkin's disease (HD) and divided in three groups. Twenty-six cases (19 per cent) showed heavy infiltration (> 200 eosinophils/10 vision fields (VF)), 51 (36 per cent) moderate infiltration (11-200 eosinophils/10 VF and 63 virtually no infiltration (< 10 eosinophils/10 VF). The eosinophilic infiltration was significantly more pronounced in the nodular sclerosis subtype. Cases with heavy infiltration had a significantly worse disease-free survival compared to other cases. In a multivariate analysis, heavy eosinophilic infiltration was the most important factor for determining disease-free survival in all patients and also when patients above and below 60 were analysed separately.