Sézary Syndrome Patients Research Articles

Sezary syndrome. I. Specific skin-directed migration of peripheral blood lymphocytes.

The in vitro migration of peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) from Sezary syndrome (SS) patients and from controls was studied using a migration assay under agar. Only PBL from SS patients migrate to normal allogeneic skin. This migration is organ specific. It requires the integrity of lymphocyte membrane receptors. Serum factors are not involved. Studies of the nature of these migrating lymphocytes using monoclonal antibodies suggest that they belong to a subset of helper T cells. These data indicate a functional impairment of SS lymphocytes, which enables them to respond to a skin-derived signal.

Chromosomes and B and T cells in mycosis fungoides

Because mycosis fungoides (MF) and Sézary syndrome (SS) share several features, some investigators have considered them to be different stages of the same disease. Others view them as separate entities. Cytogenetic studies in four typical MF patients showed that the chromosomal abnormalities were different from those reported in SS patients, and the abnormalities were found with almost equal frequency in both B and T cells. In addition, we found the frequencies of the T cells in six of the eight peripheral blood determinations in three patients were within normal range. These observations support the possibility that MF and SS are two separate disease entities.