Value of measurement of Tª²lymphocyte subsets in patients with malignant pleural effusions

    WANG Yingª²Yu, ZHANG Rui, ZHANG Zhiª²Pei, ZHOU Yongª²An, SUN Xiaoª²Yan

    Department of Thoracic Surgery, Tangdu Hospital, Fourth Miliª²tary Medical University, Xi¬ðan 710038, China

    ¡¾Abstract¡¿ AIM: To measure Tª²lymphocyte subsets (TLS) in peripheral blood (PB) and pleural effusion (PE) in patients with malignant pleural effusions (MPE) and to study the changes of TLS in PB and PE in patients with MPE before and after chemotherapy. METHODS: The levels of TLS in PB and PE in patients with MPE or benign pleural effusion (BPE) and in PB of normal person were examined and compared; The levels of TLS in PB and PE were also compared before and after chemotherapy. RESULTS: The distribution of TLS was similar in PB and PE in patients with MPE; the level of CD8+ T cell in PB of patients with MPE was higher than that in normal person (30.6¡À2.4 vs 20.9¡À1.8, P<0.05), but the ratio of CD4+/CD8+ was lower than that in normal person (1.78¡À0.21 vs 2.71¡À0.35, P<0.05), and the level of CD4+ T cell was similar with the normal; compared with BPE patients, MPE ones had lower level of CD4+ T cell and ratio of CD4+/CD8+ (P<0.05), but higher level of CD8+ T cell in their PB and PE (P<0.05); chemotherapy could depress CD8+ T cell (30.6¡À2.4 vs 24.7¡À2.3, 31.6¡À2.4 vs 21.9¡À4.1, P<0.05) and elevate the ratio of CD4+/CD8+ (1.78¡À0.21 vs 2.19¡À0.19, 1.69¡À0.30 vs 2.62¡À0.40, P<0.05) in PB and PE in patients with MPE. CONCLUSION: The level of TLS in PE can be known by measuring it in PB; it is helpful to measure the level of TLS in PB and PE for distinguishing MPE from BPE; cellª²mediated immunity depression in MPE can be partly ameliorated by chemotherapy. ......