title: [Association of T cell subsets with clinical status and hepatic pathology in children with chronic hepatitis B virus infection].
abstract: BACKGROUND
  To study characteristics of peripheral T cell subsets in 94 children with chronic hepatitis B and to elucidate its relationships with clinical status and hepatic pathology.
  
  
  METHODS
  Peripheral T cell subsets were detected using flow cytometric analysis with specific monoclonal antibodies staining in 94 patients with HBV infection. The authors simultaneously detected their serum ALT, markers of HBV infection and examined liver biopsy material for pathological changes.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In patients with serious liver lesion, the ratio of CD4+/CD8+ cells was significantly higher than those with mild lesion (1.41+/-0.54 vs 1.08+/-0.35, P less than 0.05), which seemed to be associated with the various liver lesions among the patients. In female cases, the levels of CD4+ T cells and the ratio of CD4+/CD8+ T cells were higher than their counterpart in male cases (33.1+/-5.39 vs 28.8+/-6.28, 1.28+/-0.32 vs 1.02+/-0.36, P less than 0.05), but the level of CD8+ T cells was lower than those in males (26.79+/-4.66 vs 30.51+/-7.17, P less than 0.05). There was no obvious correlation between T cell subsets and circulating HBV viral load, the size of spleen among the HBV-infected children.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The characteristics of peripheral T cell subsets probably suggests the immune disorder occurred in these children with hepatitis B compared with healthy controls and its mechanism needs further investigation.
authors.affiliation: The No. 302 Hospital of PLA, Beijing 100039, China.
authors.forename: Zhi-qiang
authors.initials: ZQ
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Hong-fei
authors.initials: HF
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Xiao-jin
authors.initials: XJ
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Bin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Fu-sheng
authors.initials: FS
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D019694:Hepatitis B, Chronic / Q000276:immunology* / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008099:Liver / Q000473:pathology*; D008297:Male; D016176:T-Lymphocyte Subsets / Q000276:immunology*