title: [Detection of NK and NKT cells in peripheral blood of patients with cGVHD and its significance].
abstract: The aim of this study was to investigate the correlation of NK and NKT cells in peripheral blood of patients undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) with chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD). 64 patients undergoing allo-HSCT in Guangdong Provincial People Hospital were studied retrospectively. Among 64 cases, 21 cases were did not develop with cGVHD, 43 cases (mild 15, moderate 18, severe 10) were recorded with cGVHD. The frequency of NK and NKT cells in peripheral blood of patients were measured by flow cytometry. The counts of NK and NKT cells were measured by automatic five sort hematology cyto-analyser (LH-750). The frequency and counts of NK and NKT cells between patients with non-cGVHD and patients with different status of cGVHD were analysed. The results indicated that as compared with the non-cGVHD patients, the frequency and counts of NK cells in patients with cGVHD obviously reduced (P < 0.05), the frequency and count of NKT cells were did not changed significantly. The frequency and counts of NK cells gradually decreased within the different status of cGVHD, the frequency and counts of NK cells in severe-cGVHD were significantly lower than that in mild-cGVHD. It is concluded that NK cells may play an important role in the incidence and development of cGVHD. The detection of frequency and counts of NK cells should be helpful to early diagnose cGVHD and provide valuable clues for assessing the severity of illnesses. NKT cells may have little effect on the incidence and development of cGVHD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Guangdong Provincial Academy of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China. zmhuagz@126.com
authors.forename: Mao-Hua
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Chun-Miao
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Cai-Ping
authors.initials: CP
authors.lastname: Gong
authors.forename: Yin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006086:Graft vs Host Disease / Q000097:blood*; D018380:Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation; D006801:Humans; D007694:Killer Cells, Natural; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D055611:Natural Killer T-Cells; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous; D055815:Young Adult