Popis: |
The parameters of humoral and cellular immunity were studied in patients with meningitis due to tuberculosis and other diseases. Peripheral blood and spinal fluid were measured in 91 and 76 patients with tuberculous meningitis, in 75 and 59 with purulent meningitis, and in 54 and 33 with serous meningitis, respectively. Comparing assessment of the findings revealed profound changes in the content of T lymphocytes and their subpopulations. With this, impaired cellular immunity appeared not only as changes in the relative count of immuno-complement cells, but in their different functional activity detectable by blast cell formation. Thus, in tuberculous meningitis, 18.11 +/- 0.95% of peripheral lymphocytes and 15.1 +/- 1.2% spinal fluid were exposed to the specific blast cell transformation antigen PPD whereas they were 1.94 +/- 0.3 and 2.4 +/- 0.9% (p0.001) and 1.86 +/- 0.28 and 3.1 +/- 0.8% (p0.001), respectively. Elevated spinal fluid levels of beta 2-microglobulin and IgE in patients are shown to be a differential diagnostic sign typical of tuberculous meningitis. |