Abstract
Eight patients with subacute necrotizing lymphadenitis have been studied. All the patients showed the persistent cervical lymphadenopathy with tenderness and the subacute illness with low-or high-grade fever. Characteristic pathological findings, which consist of the immunoblast and histiocytoid cell infiltrations around necrotic regions at paracortical areas of affected lymph nodes, were observed in the excised lymph nodes from 8 patients. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells obtained from patients and controls were examined about the proliferative responses to phytohemagglutinin, concanavalin A, anti-CD 3, pokeweed mitogen, PPD, and candida antigen, and natural killer cell activity. In the report, it was demonstrated that the proliferative responses to those mitogens and recall antigens are highly depressed in patients' peripheral blood mononuclear cells, compared to controls'. Natural killer cell activity is also decreased in patient group and CD 16 positive cells are significantly fewer in patients' peripheral blood mononuclear cells than in controls'. When peripheral blood mononuclear cells were stimulated with Epstein-Barr virus and immunoglobulins produced by B cells were assessed, it seemed that immunoglobulin production from B cells of patients stimulated with Epstein-Barr virus was fairly preserved, compared with the prolifer-ative responses to mitogen of T cells or natural killer cell activity.
