[Effects of disease activities and corticosteroid therapy on the chemiluminescence of peripheral polymorphonuclear leukocytes in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus].

To elucidate the phagocytic activity of polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN) in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), we assayed the luminol dependent chemiluminescence of PMN (PMN-CL) of 30 patients with SLE, and evaluated the effects of disease activities and corticosteroid (steroid) therapy on the PMN-CL. The PMN-CL of active SLE patients (n = 10) before steroid therapy increased significantly compared to normal controls when stimulated with phorbol myristate acetate (PMA) (p less than 0.05). On the contrary it decreased significantly when stimulated with opsonized zymosan (OZ) (p less than 0.01). The PMN-CL of SLE patients under steroid therapy (average prednisolone dose, 40.4 mg/day) revealed a tendency to decrease according to the increase of total steroid dose. It was correlated with the total steroid dose for the preceding 12 or 16 weeks, when stimulated with formyl-methionylleucyl-phenylalanine and PMA. However it was not related with the current steroid dose. Thus the increase of PMN-CL by PMA stimulation as well as the decrease by OZ stimulation seems to be a characteristic phenomenon in SLE. The PMN phagocytic activity in SLE will be suppressed after more than 12 weeks therapy of large doses of steroid.