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| ORIGINAL ARTICLE |
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| Year : 2008 | Volume
: 54
| Issue : 1 | Page : 7-11 |
Immunophenotypic characterisation of peripheral T lymphocytes in pulmonary tuberculosis
FM Al Majid, AA Abba
Department of Medicine, King Khalid University Hospital and College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Correspondence Address:
A A Abba
Department of Medicine, King Khalid University Hospital and College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh
Saudi Arabia
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/0022-3859.39182
Background: The cellular immune response plays an important role in determining the outcome of infection and disease in Mycobacterium tuberculosis . Many studies of these disease interactions yield contradictory results. Aim: This study aims at determining the changes that take place in the subpopulations of T lymphocytes in the blood of patients with pulmonary tuberculosis (TB). Settings and Design: This cross-sectional study was done at King Khalid University Hospital, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Materials and Methods: Flow cytometry was used to determine the absolute numbers and percentages of T CD3, T CD4, T CD8, T CD19 and natural killer (NK) T cells in 54 patients with active pulmonary TB before the commencement of treatment and in 25 healthy PPD negative volunteers. Statistical Analysis: Statistical Package for Social Sciences (version 11.5) was used for analysis. Results: There were significant differences in the values of CD3, CD4 and NK T cells among the groups. The numbers of CD3 and CD4 cells were lower in subjects than in controls [1091.9 ± 321.4 vs. 1364.6 ± 251.2; P < 0.001 and 639.8 ± 285 vs. 822 ± 189.9; P < 0.004, respectively] while numbers of NK T cells were much higher in patients than in controls (410.7 ± 286 vs. 182.3 ± 140; P < 0.001). The numbers of CD8 cells were not significantly changed with disease (609 ± 233.5 in subjects and 613.4 ± 170.3 in controls P = 0.761). Conclusion: There are significant changes in the cellular immune response particularly affecting the CD3, CD4 and NK T cells with the development of pulmonary TB. Therefore, further studies of these changes may have important implications on the development of diagnostic tools, vaccines and treatment modalities.
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