The relationship of the basophil to blood histamine in man

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 caseon the basis of the amount in 10⁸ granulocytes, there is a readily evident positivecorrelation with the basophil percentage and a negative correlation with thepercentage of other myeloid elements. This is strikingly apparent in instanceswhere blood with a very high percentage of basophils was analyzed. The dataindicate that in chronic granulocytic leukemia, the basophil is predominantlyand, perhaps exclusively, responsible for the marked elevations in blood histamine. Inferentially, it appears probable that this cell type, though small innumbers, may be the principal carrier of histamine in non-leukemic blood.

Submitted on April 26, 1954 Accepted on May 24, 1954