[Various immune functions (with particular attention to NK cells) in young people with frequent episodes of pharyngitis]. / Studio di alcune funzioni immunitarie (con particolare attenzione alle cellule "NK") in giovani con frequenti episodi faringitici.

In four girls, selected during three years of ambulatory observations, the evolution of repeated upper respiratory tract infection events, under the immunologic aspect, has been studied. The group of girls, with age between 13 and 16 years, practically formed a small casuistry, as an experimental recruitment. With the aim to find the causes of the told infectious events, firstly were checked numerous immune functions, successively were evaluated only the ones that had resulted altered (percentage number of "NK" cells, complement "C3" fraction and "T4" lymphocytes). Particularly significative variations, toward diminution, of the "NK" cells number related to the most compelling school attendance periods were recognized. What observed could let hypothesize that stress and emotions , correlated to scholastic events negatively influence some immune functions, peculiarly the number of "NK" cells. To the lowering of these cells could correspond a facilitation and higher frequency of upper respiratory tract infections (with pharynx as an epicenter), likely by viral aetiology. The subsequent vicarious and/or compensatory intervention by other immune functions could allow, however, the spontaneous recovery, without chemotherapeutic recourse, of the infectious events, that could arise with higher frequency but, most likely, with lower seriousness than could happen when "NK" cells normally act.

[Effect of the emotional state on immune functions: study on firstborn children on the occasion of the birth of a sibling]. / Influenza degli stati emotivi su funzioni immunitarie: studio in bambini primogeniti in occasione della nascita di un fratello.

The eventuality that a particular emotional involvement could weigh heavily on a person's psychophysical welfare, assuming a complementary role in the appearance of clinically noticeable pathologies (infections, allergies, neoplasms) has been object of several hypotheses which have been confirmed in researches on animals. Our research, by examining an unavoidable and surely natural situation like that one of the birth of a brother for a first born, a particularly severe for what affectivity is concerned, had the aim to evidence if there were some biological expressions, able to quantitatively settle the eventual immune functions' alterations indicative of a preexistent equilibrium. With this purpose have been examined several biological expressions indicative of immune functions (B lymphocytes, T lymphocytes, NK cells, lymphocyte transformation, chemotaxis, phagocytosis, C3 Complement fraction) in three first-born children with 2 to 3 years of age, whose mothers had in course a second pregnancy, during a period of about 20 months (from III pregnancy month to XIV month of age of the brother). The evolution of these immune functions evidence, during the whole period of observation, a non univocal performance. In the most of the cases was evidenced a variation towards diminution of the biological expression of some functions (lymphocyte transformation, T3 lymphocytes, T4 lymphocytes, T4/T8 rate, "E" Rosettes, chemotaxis and phagocytosis), while in the case of NK cells there were also variations towards augmentation. Particularly important were the variations towards diminution, that biological expressions as lymphocyte transformation and "E" Rosettes undergo. In two children the variations, towards diminution, showed themselves already before the birth of the brother. The variation of the T3 and T4 lymphocytes, of the T4/T8 rate, of chemotaxis and of phagocytosis were more limited. The values of the other examined biological expressions (T8, B7, C3) were in the normal range during the whole period of observation. Our results let us to attribute to emotional events, as in experimented model, the capacity to affect the biological expression that measures some immune functions, by depressing them in most of the cases, so in way to adulterate the immune equilibrium, and by setting the premises to upset the capability of immune defense in the examined persons. Our observations lead us to think that effectively, an event during which an important emotional state is induced, by upsetting the immune equilibrium, could more predispose a child (in this case the first born) to the action of pathogens.