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ABNORMAL T‐CELL SUBPOPULATIONS IN HEMOPHILIC PATIENTS RECEIVING FACTOR Vlll CONCENTRATES FROM VOLUNTARY DONORS
Author(s) -
WEARNE A.,
JOSHUA D. E.,
RICKARD K. A.,
KRONENBERG H.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
australian and new zealand journal of medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.596
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1445-5994
pISSN - 0004-8291
DOI - 10.1111/j.1445-5994.1984.tb04278.x
Subject(s) - medicine , volunteer , immunology , antibody , virus , immune system , lymphocyte , disease , gastroenterology , biology , agronomy
Recently, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) has been reported in hemophiliacs in the USA, Canada and Spain, and this has caused considerable concern amongst hemophiliacs regarding the use of factor Vlll concentrates. The aim of this study was to determine whether hemophiliacs in Australia have T‐lymphocyte subpopulation changes similar to those observed in patients with AIDS. Factor Vlll produced in Australia is derived from a totally volunteer blood donor system and none of the hemophiliacs in this study had received commercial blood products. For the hemophiliacs, the T‐helper cell to T‐suppressor cell ratio was 1.1±0.6 (mean ± SD) which was significantly less (p<0.001) than that of the normal age and sex‐matched controls. There was a significant relative (p < 0.001) and absolute (p < 0.05) reduction of the helper cell subsets and a significant relative ( p < 0.001) and absolute (p<0.05) increase of the suppressor cell subsets, in the hemophiliacs compared to the normal controls. There appears to be no correlation between the amount of factor Vlll therapy received during the last three years and the T‐cell subset changes. All patients with Christmas disease had T‐cell subsets within the normal range. All patients were negative for the hepatitis B virus antigen, but all were positive for the antibody, indicating that there had been exposure to the hepatitis virus in all cases. Cytomegalovirus titres were uniformly low and immunoglobulin levels were normal. These findings have been reported from many centres and in view of the absence of the other criteria for AIDS in our hemophiliacs, may only reflect a response to chronic antigenic stimulation. It is of interest that factor IX preparations do not seem to have this effect.