A Search for Biological Markers in Leukaemia and Lymphoma Group of Diseases

An attempt has been made to identify enzyme or hormonal markers in leukaemia and lymphoma group of diseases. Lysozyme has been found to be elevated in serum of patients with myeloid leukaemia; a fall in xanthine oxidase activity was noted in all cases studied. Incidence of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) in serum was found to be very high in multiple myeloma and Hodgkins Disease followed by lymphocytic lymphoma; human placental lactogen (hPL) was present in few cases of lymphatic lymphoma. Reduced levels of xanthine oxidase would therefore indicate presence of leukaemia or lymphoma warranting further investigation. Markedly elevated serum lysozyme would imply myeloid leukaemia excluding diagnosis of lymphatic leukaemia and lymphomas. Detection of both hCG and hPL would be diagnostic of multiple myeloma/Hodgkin\u27s disease and lymphoma respectively

Serum Lysozyme Pattern and Hematological Changes in the Host During Growth of a Transplantable Murine Lymphoma

The serum lysozyme concentrations were determined in the host mice bearing a transplantable ascitic lymphoma during growth of the tumour. Simultaneously, the hematological changes were also recorded. These ob-servations were made at weekly intervals till the animals survived and were made at weekly intervals till the animals survived and were compared with their normal counterparts. It has been shown that there is a progressive increase in the concentration of lysozyme along with the growth of the tumour cells within the peritoneal cavity which reaches a peak on the third week following transplantation of tumour cells and then falls off. The con-centration of the enzyme, however, never reaches the normal values ob-served. This shows a parallelism with the growth pattern of the tumour in general. Total and differential counts of white blood cells revealed a marked rise in the total leukocyte counts and a reversal of the lymphoid-myeloid ratio during the growth of the tumour in the host