[Humoral and cellular immunity in meningitis of various etiology]. / Gumoral'nyi i kletochnyi immunitet pri meningitakh razlichnoi étiologii.

The parameters of humoral and cellular immunity were studied in patients with meningitis due to tuberculosis and other diseases. Peripheral blood and spinal fluid were measured in 91 and 76 patients with tuberculous meningitis, in 75 and 59 with purulent meningitis, and in 54 and 33 with serous meningitis, respectively. Comparing assessment of the findings revealed profound changes in the content of T lymphocytes and their subpopulations. With this, impaired cellular immunity appeared not only as changes in the relative count of immuno-complement cells, but in their different functional activity detectable by blast cell formation. Thus, in tuberculous meningitis, 18.11 +/- 0.95% of peripheral lymphocytes and 15.1 +/- 1.2% spinal fluid were exposed to the specific blast cell transformation antigen PPD whereas they were 1.94 +/- 0.3 and 2.4 +/- 0.9% (p < 0.001) and 1.86 +/- 0.28 and 3.1 +/- 0.8% (p < 0.001), respectively. Elevated spinal fluid levels of beta 2-microglobulin and IgE in patients are shown to be a differential diagnostic sign typical of tuberculous meningitis.

[Distribution of transplantation HLA antigens in children and adolescents with meningitis of various etiology]. / Raspredelenie transplantatsionnykh antigenov sistemy HLA u detei i podrostkov, boleiushchikh meningitami razlichnoi étiologii.

An interaction between HLA antigens and predisposition to meningitis of specific and nonspecific etiology was studied in children and adolescents from an Azerbaijan population. The distribution of HLA antigens was found to be heterogeneous in the patients with meningitis of various etiology. Tuberculous meningitis was characterized by a significant rise in the detection rate of HLA-DR3 antigen, by a considerable frequency of B14 and DR2 antigens; patients with purulent meningitis much more significantly showed HLA-B12 antigen; in terms of locus A, there was an increase in the detection rates of HLA-A19 antigen in serous meningitis.

[Comparative analysis of the results of spinal fluid microbiological study in children and adults who suffered from tuberculous meningitis]. / Sravnitel'nyi analiz rezul'tatov mikrobiologicheskogo issledovaniia spinnomozgovoi zhidkosti u detei i vzroslykh, bol'nykh tuberkuleznym meningitom.

An examination was made of 133 children and 89 adults, aged 3 to 60 years, who had admitted for suspected tuberculous meningitis. The diagnosis of tuberculous meningitis was established in 113 children and 79 adults. In the remaining 20 ill children and 10 adult patients, tuberculous etiology of the disease was rejected. After puncture, spinal fluid was examined by three methods, bacretioscopy, cultivation, and biological assay. Bacterioscopy detected Mycobacteria tuberculosis in 5.3 and 2.5% of ill children and adults, respectively. Types of M. tuberculosis were isolated more frequently in children (n = 66 (58.4%)) than in adults (n = 22 (27.9%)) by bacteriology and in 39 (34.5%) and 15 (30.0%) adults by biological assay. The spinal fluid much more frequently displayed changed forms (L forms) of M. tuberculosis than bacterial ones. They were isolated in 62 (54.9%) and 59 (74.6%) adults by cultivation. On the whole, spinal fluid cultivation for L forms of M. tuberculosis allowed the total detection percentages for an etiological factor to be increased in children and adults, who both suffered from tuberculous meningitis, they accounted for 87.6 and 87.3%, respectively.