Abstract:
AIM To characterize the prevalence of subpopulations of CD4+
cells along with that of major inhibitor or stimulator cell
types in therapy naive childhood Crohn s disease (CD) and to
test whether abnormalities of immune phenotype are normalized
with the improvement of clinical signs and symptoms of disease
METHODS We enrolled 26 pediatric patients with CD 14 therapy
naive CD children, of those, 10 children remitted on
conventional therapy and formed the re mission group We also
tested another group of 12 children who relapsed with
conventional therapy and were given infliximab, and 15 healthy
children who served as controls The prevalence of Th1 and Th2,
naive and memory, activated and regulatory T cells, along with
the members of innate immunity such as natural killer (NK), NK
T, myeloid and plasmocytoid dendritic cells (DCs), monocytes and
Toll like receptor (TLR) 2 and TLR 4 expression were determined
in peripheral blood samples RESULTS Children with therapy naive
CD and those in relapse showed a decrease in Th1 cell prevalence
Simultaneously, an increased prevalence of memory and activated
lymphocytes along with that of DCs and monocytes was observed In
addition, the ratio of myeloid/plasmocytoid DCs and the
prevalence of TLR2 or TLR4 positive DCs and monocytes were also
higher in therapy naive CD than in controls The majority of
alterations diminished in remitted CD irrespective of whether
remission was obtained by conventional or biological therapy
CONCLUSION The finding that immune phenotype is normalized in
remission suggests a link between immune phenotype and disease
activity in childhood CD Our observations support the
involvement of members of the adaptive and innate immune systems
in childhood CD (C) 2010 Baishideng All rights reserved