HAIRY‐CELL LEUKAEMIA

If recognition in the form of an international meeting can be taken as indicating that a subject has come of age, then hairy-cell leukaemia (HCL) recently reached this milestone at the approximate age of 2 5. The first International Workshop on HCL was held in October 198 3 at the University of Chicago, not very far from Columbus, Ohio, where the disease was first’ definitively recognized in 19 5 8 under the name of leukaemic reticuloendotheliosis (Bouroncle et al, 19 5 8 ) . The Workshop involved the presentation of papers by some 2 5 participants from throughout the world, all with a particular and often long-standing interest in different aspects of HCL. As a result, most aspects of the disease were considered and discussed and the proceedings have just appeared as two handsome issues of Seminars in Oncology (December 1984). Dr Harvey Golomb (University of Chicago) and his organizing committee are to be congratulated on making the meeting possible. It therefore seems timely to use this Annotation briefly to review the disease, particularly emphasizing points that have emerged since the disease was last comprehensively reviewed in 1980 (Cawley et al, 1980a).