Lymph-node Changes Due to Polyvinyl

Polyvinyl pyrrolidone has been widely used in recent years as a plasma expander, and a few side-effects have been reported, mostly reactions considered due to allergic or similar mechanisms. A few histological changes have been noted in man such as the liver lesions reported by Gall, Altemeier, Schiff, Hamilton, Braunstein, Giuseffi, and Freiman (1953) and the work of Vickery (1956), but in general little is known about the tissue reactions it may stimulate. It may thus be of interest to record briefly unusual lymph-node changes which appear almost certainly to be due to polyvinyl pyrrolidone. Here the material was not given as an intravenous infusion, but was used as an absorption-retarding agent in a drug which the patient gave herself by subcutaneous or intramuscular injection in the thigh over a period of about a year.