[Association of T cell subsets with clinical status and hepatic pathology in children with chronic hepatitis B virus infection].
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.
Xu
Zhi-qiang
ZQ
The No. 302 Hospital of PLA, Beijing 100039, China.
Zhang
Hong-fei
HF
Yang
Xiao-jin
XJ
Yang
Bin
B
Wang
Fu-sheng
FS
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*