癩患者의 型別에 따른 末梢血液 T림프구 亞型의 分布 = Peripheral Blood T lymphocyte in Leprosy

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

It is well known that there is an imbalance of T lymphocyte subpopulation in lepromatous leprosy (LL). To determine whether this imbalance can be normalized along with the improvement of clinical symptomes, the status of T lymphocyte subsets was studied in the peripheral blood of the leprosy patients who have been treated for many years.
The results were summarized as follows:
l. The percentage and the total number of T lymphocytes were increased in both tuberculoid leprosy (TT) and LL patients as compared with controls (p<0.01).
2. The reduction of the percentage of helper T cells were significant in both bacteriologically positive LL (25.8%, p<O.01) and negative LL (31. 1%, p<0.05).
3. The percentage of suppressor T cell was significantly increased in both bacteriologically positive LL (31.5%, p<0.01) and negative LL (30.9%, p<0.01).
4. The reduction of T helper/supressor(H/S) ratio was significant in both bacteriologically positive LL (0.7±0.23, p<0.01) and negative LL (1.0±0.41, p<0.01), in contrast to controls (1.8±0.15).
5. The reduction of percentage of helper T cells was persisted in both bacteriologically positive LL (25.8%) and negative LL who convert to be negative within 5 years(25. 7%), but the increase were significant in negative LL who were convert to be negative in 6 to 10 years (31. 3%) and convert to be before 11 years(36.8%).
6. Bacteriologically negative LL patients still display impairment of CMI, but a few of them return to the normal value of the H/S ratio.
7. The results in patients with TT did not differ significantly from those of controls.
From above results, defective CMI of LL was caused by the decrease of helper T cells and the increase of suppressor T cells. In spite of the H/S ratio progressively return to the normal value in a few patients, it is difficult to predict the clinical progression by this results because of the individual variations.