Colchicine sensitivity index: a means of distinguishing benign and malignant lymphocytic cutaneous infiltrates (author's transl)

Abstract

Lymphocytes in patients with chronic lymphatic leukaemia and other malignant lymphomas have an abnormally high sensitivity to colchicine in vitro. This can be expressed in a colchicine-sensitivity index and used diagnostically. Lymphocytes isolated from cutaneous infiltrates in mycosis fungoides, a cutaneous malignant T-cell lymphoma, had an increased colchicine-sensitivity index of 44 (P < 0.01). On the other hand, lymphocytes from cutaneous infiltrates of reactive inflammatory dermatitis cases had an index of 23. It would seem that the colchicine-sensitivity index is helpful in the diagnosis of selected cases of cutaneous malignant lymphomas.