The aim of our study was to evaluate the digressions of lymphocyte subsets in patients with recurrent upper airway infectious diseases.
Methods: We studied 35 patients (mean of age 11.1+/-2.1 years) with recurrent upper airway infections. The first group consisted of patients, who had acute upper airway infections: rhinitis, pharyngitis, laryngitis and tracheitis more than 6 times per last year, sinusitis or otitis more than 4 times per last year. The control group comprised of 9 healthy subjects. Subsets of lymphocytes (CD3+, CD4+, CD8+, CD4+/CD8+, CD16+/56+ and CD19+) were detected by FACS Calibur cytometer.
Results: We found a significantly lower count of CD4+ lymphocytes in the patients' group compared to the control group (37.5+/-1.2 vs 45.7+/-3.1% of total lymphocytes, p<0.01). We did not find any significant differences of other lymphocyte subsets between patients and control groups.
Conclusion: We propose that patients with recurrent upper airway infections have alterations of the cellular immunity -- decreased amount of CD4+ lymphocytes.