Blood, 1955, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 154-159.
© 1955 American Society of Hematology, Inc.
The Relationship of the Basophil to Blood Histamine
in Man
WILLIAM N. VALENTINE 1,
JOHN S. LAWRENCE 1,
MORTON LEE PEARCE 1, and
WILLIAM S. BECK 1
1 Department of Medicine and the Atomic Energy Project, University of California Medical Center, Los Angeles, California.
Data are presented correlating 22 determinations of the histamine content of blood in patients with chronic granulocytic leukemia with (1) the basophils (2) the other myeloid granulocytes. Expressing the histamine in each case
on the basis of the amount in 108 granulocytes, there is a readily evident positive
correlation with the basophil percentage and a negative correlation with the
percentage of other myeloid elements. This is strikingly apparent in instances
where blood with a very high percentage of basophils was analyzed. The data
indicate that in chronic granulocytic leukemia, the basophil is predominantly
and, perhaps exclusively, responsible for the marked elevations in blood histamine. Inferentially, it appears probable that this cell type, though small in
numbers, may be the principal carrier of histamine in non-leukemic blood.
Submitted on April 26, 1954
Accepted on May 24, 1954
