Immunological studies in infective dermatitis flow cytometric analysis of lymphocyte subpopulations in 41 cases - abstract

ABSTRACT

Infective dermatitis (ID) is a newly described HTLV-I associated with chronic dermatitis that is characterized by super infection of the skin with non-virulent pathogens. In order to investigate the possible mechanisms for this associated immune dysfunction we examined, by flow cytometry, lymphocyte subpopulations in a study group of 41 patients with infective dermatitis and compared the results with an age and sex matched group of patients with atopic eczema (AE) not associated with HTLV-I. Our results show an increase in total T-cells (CD3/Leu 4 +)2 T-helper inducer cells (CD4/Leu 3+), Activated T-cells (Leu RLA - DR+) and a subpopulation of cytotoxic T-cells (CD57 CD8/Leu 7+ Leu 2+) in the study group over the controls. The results support previous observations that T-cell aberrations in asymptomatic HTLV-I seropositive individuals, patients with Tropical Spastic Paraparesis (TSP) and adult T-cell leukaemia (ATL). It would appear that HTLV-I-induced immunodeficiency may be the result of phenotypic qualitative defects in T-lymphocyte subpopulations although absolute counts may be elevated (AU)