Allogeneic blood transfusion alleviates hip joint pain induced by ankylosing spondylitis / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND:Pain is the main clinical manifestation for ankylosing spondylitis. At present, nonsteroid anti-inflammatory drugs are oral y taken, but the effects are limited and toxic and side effects are more. Thus, there is no effective scheme for treatment of pain induced by ankylosing spondylitis. OBJECTIVE:To investigate the correlation between postoperative joint pain al eviation and al ogeneic blood transfusion, and the mechanisms. METHODS:We retrospectively analyzed clinical data of 88 ankylosing spondylitis patients combined with kyphosis who received only one section of osteotomy surgery merging hip joint pain. We compared the visual analog scale score of hip joint and detected the variation of leucocytes, lymphocytes and immunoglobulin concentrations before and after the operation in the groups of fresh al ogeneic whole blood transfusion, autologous whole blood transfusion, and mixed transfusion of al ogeneic and autologous whole blood. Flow cytometry was used to analyze the number and ratio of peripheral blood Th17 cells and Treg cells which were both highly associated with autoimmune diseases. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:The symptom of hip arthralgia obviously improved in both groups transfused by fresh al ogeneic whole blood or al ogeneic-autologous mixed whole blood. However, no obvious variation was detected in leucocytes, lymphocytes and immunoglobin concentration. However, flow cytometry results indicated that Th17/Treg proportion associated with autoimmune diseases was increased remarkably in peripheral blood of ankylosing spondylitis patients. Results suggested that al ogeneic whole blood transfusion can al eviate patients’ joint pain by correcting the imbalance of Th17/Treg which may improve their immune state.