Eradication of malignant T cells correlated with recruitment and expansion of new responding benign T cells, but was not related to the initial burden of malignant clonal T cells or the total number of benign T cells before or after therapy. (A) The absolute numbers of malignant T cells per 100 µg of DNA before (pre-tx) and after therapy (post-tx) are shown. There was no correlation of a complete or near-complete eradication of malignant T cells (patients 3, 8,1 1, and 1) with initial clonal T-cell burden. (B) The absolute number of benign infiltrating T cells before and after therapy are shown and did not correlate with clearance of the malignant T-cell clone. (C) Expansion of benign T-cell clones in treated lesions was associated with improved clinical responses. The number of expanded (>1% frequency) benign infiltrating T-cell clones in patients after treatment are shown and was associated with improved clinical responses and eradication of clonal malignant T cells. (D) The percentage of the top 20 benign T-cell clones that were newly recruited vs resident in the skin before treatment are shown. The 20 most frequent benign T-cell clones were identified after therapy and their presence before treatment was determined. Patients were divided into high responders (high resp; >99% malignant T-cell eradication), mid-responders (mid resp; 50% to 99% eradication), and low responders (low resp; 0% to 50% eradication). Recruitment of new responding benign T-cell clones into treated lesions was associated with better eradication of malignant T cells. (E-F) The frequency and absolute numbers of the top 10 most frequent benign T-cell clones pre-tx and post-tx are shown in examples of high-responding (HR) and low-responding (LR) patients. In general, HR patients had marked expansion of benign T-cell clones. Pt, patient.