The lymphocyte response in Hodgkin's disease.
Fifty cases of Hodgkin's disease have been investigated using the lymphocyte transformation response to phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) as a mesure of their immunological reaction. The average response of all the cases was lower than that of the controls and lower than that of cases of carcinoma from all sites. Cases of Hodgkin's disease which had been treated previously with radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy had a markedly lower response than that of the untreated cases. There was no definite correlation between the stage of the disease and the lymphocyte response with PHA. Seven cases were also tested with pokeweek mitogen (PWM) and the response of the lymphocytes to PWM was found to parallel that of the PHA.