Immunologic abnormalities associated with acute ischemic heart disease (a pilot study).

When in vivo and in vitro studies of patients with myocardial infarction (MI) were compared with healthy controls there was significantly diminished cutaneous cellular immunity and numbers of T lymphocytes in patients who suffered MI. This study contrasted patients with MI to controls and to patients with other types of cardiovascular disease. There was a significant difference when control patients were compared with those who failed to survive MI for 4 weeks (P less than .001). Patients who died in less than 1 month had 3.6 times less circulating percent T-cells than age-matched controls. A new method is described for categorization of in vitro T-cells in human subjects. If certain patients with low numbers of T-cells following MI die, perhaps this information may serve to alert the physician to intervene and correct the patient's course to recovery.