Hodgkin’s disease, lymphosarcoma, and acute leukemia have been studied after treatment with the Vinca rosea alkaloids (vinblastine and vincristine), in order to demonstrate and evaluate the mitosis-arresting effects of the two drugs on the malignant cells. Histologic sections, lymph node and bone marrow aspirations were performed immediately before and 24 hours after the intravenous administration of the drugs in 15 cases of Hodgkin’s disease, 12 of lymphoblastic lymphosarcoma, and 12 of acute leukemia, besides other miscellaneous cases. In Hodgkin’s disease aspirates and sections showed a clear-cut metaphase arrest in the post-VLB specimens, chiefly affecting the pre-Sternberg or Hodgkin cells. This effect, besides corroborating the fundamentally stathmokinetic mechanism of VLB in Hodgkin’s disease, was considered an additional factor in confirming the widely proposed conception that these cells represent the fundamentally proliferating and malignant tissue of this disease. In the acute leukemias and lymphoblastosarcomas, cytomorphologic and quantitative studies demonstrated that the oncolytic effects correlated well with the magnitude of metaphasic blockade. It is postulated that only actively proliferating cells—the so-called "growth fraction"—are the target for these alkaloids.
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Marmont et al. (1967) studied this question.