Peripheral Lymphocyte Subsets in Patients with Pulmonary and Extrapulmonary Tuberculosis / 대한임상병리학회지

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: T-cell mediated cellular immunity has been suggested as an important mechanism in mycobacterial infection. Also, it is known that there is a imbalance between helper and suppressor T cells in the pathogenesis of tuberculosis in human. This study was designed to evaluate the changes of lymphocyte subsets in patients with pulmonary and extrapulmonary tuberculosis. METHODS: Lymphocyte subset analysis was performed on 53 pulmonary tuberculosis and 21 extrapulmonary tuberculosis patients. The proportion of total T (CD3+), B (CD19+), helper T (H, CD3+CD4+) and suppressor T (S, CD3+CD8+) cells, natural killer (NK, CD16+CD56+) cells and activated T (CD3+HLA-DR+) cells were analyzed using SimultestTM (Becton-Dickinson, California, USA) by FACSortTM (Becton-Dickinson, California, USA) and each absolute cell counts and helper T/suppressor T (H/S) ratio were calculated. RESULTS: In pulmonary and extrapulmonary tuberculosis patients groups, there were no significant changes in percentage and absolute cell counts of lymphocyte subset compared to control group. But H/S ratio was significantly decreased in both groups and the H/S ratio in extapulmonary tuberculosis was lower than that in pulmonary tuberculosis (1.06+/-0.44 vs. 1.64+/-0.97). CONCLUSION: Decreased or reversed H/S ratio reflect the role of cell mediated immune response in patients with tuberculosis, expecially in the spreading of pulmonary tuberculosis. Lymphocyte subset test seems to be helpful for access the different clinical forms of tuberculosis, pulmonary and extapulmonary tuberculosis.