A Preliminary Study Of The Difference In Expression Of T Helper Cells On Peripheral Blood Lymphocytes In Asthmatic Children Under Steroid Therapy:

Abdel Fattah Ahmed El Kholy

slllJll!lfQ’ •••• _~ummaO’This study was designed to determine the T-helper cell subsets insevere asthmatic children and ’to evaluate the effect of treatment withprednisolon for one week on it and on calculated Th1ITh2 ratioThe study included 20 patients with severe asthma considered asstudy group and 10 healthy children of cross-matched age and sex andgave blood sample considered as control samples. After through clinicalexamination, chest X-ray examination, routine laboratory investigationincluded complete blood picture and erythrocyte sedimentation rate.:All the study participants g. ave two. samples:.pre-treatment and onthe -,.t’” day after treatment (Post-treatment) for flow cytometricdetermination of T-helper cell subsets; namely: Pre-T-helper cell (Tho),T-helper cell type 1 (Th1), T-helper cell type 2. (Th2) and the ratio ofTh11Th2•Eight patients were symptomatizing since birth, 4 patients at ageyounger than one year, in other 4 patients at age of one year and in 2patients at age of 2 years; while in the other 2 patients disease ’waspresented at age of 4 years.Only one patient (5%) had disease duration of 3 years; while 12patients (60%) had mean disease duration of 7.7±0.8; range: 6.3-9years and the other 7 patients (35%) had diseased since a meanduration of 12.3±1.5; range: 10-14 years.--~-----slllllllUfQ’ -----In control group; no APC could be detected in 4 controls (40%)and other controls had <100 cell/cc, while 15 patients had APC >100-500 cells/cc; while another 5 patients had >500 APC cellsicc with asignificant increase of frequency of detection of APC in patientscompared to controls’, (X2=9.15, P<0.001).The percentage of CD4 in pre-treatment samples showed a nonsignificant(P>0.05) decrease compared to control levels. Furthermore,post-treatment samples showed a non-significant (P<0.05) decrease ofpercentage of CD4 compared both to control and pre-treatment levels.There was a significant (P<0.05) decrease of percentage of Tho inpatients both pre-treatment and post-treatment samples compared tocontrol levels with a significant (P0.05) difference betweenpercentage of Th1 between pre-treatment and post-treatment samples.There was a significant (PO.05) difference between percentage ofTh2 cell in post-treatment samples compared to control samples.There was a significant (P