[Correlation study of HIV/AIDS abnormal immune activation and disease progression].

OBJECTIVE: To learn the levels of immune function and immune activation of HIV/AIDS patients in China and find the correlation between the immune activation and CD4+ T lymphocyte and disease progression. And discuss the relevance of immune activation with HIV/AIDS pathogenesis. METHOD: Two hundred and eighty seven cases of HIV/AIDS patients in different disease stages who never accept HAART before and 40 healthy HIV negative donors have been involved in the research. Their immune function and abnormal immune activation markers are detected by flow cytometry counts, and the immune activation markers include CD8 CD38+ T cells and CD8+ HLA-DR+ T cell. Compare the difference of abnormal immune activation between patients of various disease stages. And by Pearson correlation test analysis, the correlation between the immune activation levels and abnormal CD4+ T lymphocyte count and disease progression will be found. RESULT: The immune abnormal activation levels were significantly different between patients of different disease stages (P < 0.001). Correlation analysis showed that there was a significant negative correlation between peripheral blood CD4+ T cell counts and immune activation markers. CONCLUSION: Immune activation induced by HIV infection may lead to decreased CD4+ T cell count and disease progression.