This week's artwork was donated by Lonny, a pediatric cancer patient who received treatment at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia . T cells and natural killer cells after treatment of hairy cell leukaemia with 2-chlorodeoxyadenosine. All four patients were women between 37 and 67 years of age. Three patients had splenomegaly. Lymphadenopthy was absent or slight.
Abnormal lymphocytes have long microvilli and prominent membranous ruffles on their surfaces.
Bone marrow aspirates and biopsy specimens showed increased numbers of abnormal lymphocytes with round nuclei and abundant pale cytoplasm. Although these findings were similar to those of HCL, studies of Ig gene rearrangements and expression showed the polyclonal proliferation of B cells. Our findings suggest that the B cells in HBLD are the nonmalignant counterpart of leukemic B cells in HCL-Japanese variant. Here we report on all patients followed-up until April 1996. Of the 26 patients in whom lymphocyte phenotyping was performed, four were found to have a CD25-negative phenotype.