Résumé
Objective Ischemic stroke with elevated serum immunoglobulin E ( IgE) in some young patients is regarded as cerebral vasculitis clinically though without sufficient pathological evidence .This study was to investigate the characteristics of vascular lesions in these patients by temporal artery biopsy . Methods We performed histopathologic examinations on the temporal arteries of 32 young ischemic stroke patients with unknown etiology , 16 with normal and the other 16 with elevated serum IgE .We observed inflammatory cells infiltration and mast cells by HE staining and toluidine blue stai-ning respectively and determined the expressions of matrix metalloproteinase -9 (MMP-9), monocyte chemotaxis protein -1 (MCP-1) and serum IgE by immunohistochemistry . Results Compared with the patients with normal IgE , those of the elevated IgE group showed a significantly higher rate of inflammatory cells infiltration (12.5%vs 62.5%, P0.05).Nor was any signifi-cant difference observed in the number of the mast cells between the normal and elevated IgE groups (2.8 ±1.5 vs 3.6 ±2.3, P>0.05). Conclusion The infiltration and necrosis of inflammatory cells and fibrin exudation in the temporal artery of the young pa-tient with elevated serum IgE are likely to be the manifestations of vasculitis , and MCP-1 may play a role in the pathogenesis of the disease.