The Elusive Reed–Sternberg Cell

Abstract

Although Hodgkin's disease was the first of the malignant lymphomas to be described as a specific disease process, this unique cancer has been the source of many persistent questions over the past 150 years. One enigma has been the paucity of the Reed–Sternberg cells and their variants (thought to be the malignant cells in this disease) in comparison to the large numbers of normal inflammatory cells. This apparent imbalance raises questions about the pathogenesis of the disease process. Is it infectious or neoplastic? If neoplastic, is the exuberant host response secondary to neoantigens expressed on the malignant cells, or does . . .