Metabolic Activity of Lymphoma Cells and Clinical Course in Non‐Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL)

By microcalorimetry the metabolic activity of malignant cells from 21 patients with non‐Hodgkin lymphoma was monitored. Heat production, a measure of the metabolic activity of cells, showed positive correlation with the clinical‐course of the disease. The heat produced by tumor cells from patients with progressive disease was 5.5 pW/cell, while that from patients responding to treatment was 3.1 pW/cell. The difference between the 2 groups is significant (P <0.05). A higher heat production was obtained in tumor cells from 7 out of 10 patients who were unresponsive to the therapy when compared with cells from 11 patients who had become asymptomatic as a result of the same therapy. Also heat production from blood lymphocytes was found to be higher (P <0.005) in the group of patients with progressive disease as compared to the group of patients who responded to therapy. The present results indicate an association between high heat production in lymphoma cells and blood lymphocytes and a poor prognosis. © Munksgaard 1981