Letter to the Editor

Abstract

Abstract Sir: The article by Emerson and Thursh in the November issue of your Journal demonstrates antigen-induced trapping of immunospecific lymphocytes in the spleens of mice with a simultaneous deficiency of immunospecific lymphocytes in the peripheral lymph nodes and blood. The authors suggest that specific immunosuppression might be possibly by selectively trapping specific anti-allograft lymphocytes in the spleen and/or lymph nodes of an allograft recipient and then extirpating the spleen and/or lymph nodes by surgery or radiotherapy. This concept is exciting, for we (1) have demonstrated prolongation of Brown Norway to Lewis heterotopic rat cardiac allograft survival by performing splenectomy during a “critical” period after allografting. This “critical” period in our model included days 3 to 5 after transplantation, and prolongation could be abolished by reinfusion of a cellular suspension of viable cells from the excised spleens.