Rispoli Francesco, Valencic Erica, Girardelli Martina, Pin Alessia, Tesser Alessandra, Piscianz Elisa, Boz Valentina, Faletra Flavio, Severini Giovanni Maria, Taddio Andrea, Tommasini Alberto
Department of Medical, Surgical and Health Sciences, University of Trieste, 34149 Trieste, Italy.
Department of Pediatrics, Institute for Maternal and Child Health-IRCCS "Burlo Garofolo", 34137 Trieste, Italy.
Diagnostics (Basel). 2021 Mar 16;11(3):532. doi: 10.3390/diagnostics11030532.
Primary immunodeficiencies (PIDs) are a large and growing group of disorders commonly associated with recurrent infections. However, nowadays, we know that PIDs often carry with them consequences related to organ or hematologic autoimmunity, autoinflammation, and lymphoproliferation in addition to simple susceptibility to pathogens. Alongside this conceptual development, there has been technical advancement, given by the new but already established diagnostic possibilities offered by new genetic testing (e.g., next-generation sequencing). Nevertheless, there is also the need to understand the large number of gene variants detected with these powerful methods. That means advancing beyond genetic results and resorting to the clinical phenotype and to immunological or alternative molecular tests that allow us to prove the causative role of a genetic variant of uncertain significance and/or better define the underlying pathophysiological mechanism. Furthermore, because of the rapid availability of results, laboratory immunoassays are still critical to diagnosing many PIDs, even in screening settings. Fundamental is the integration between different specialties and the development of multidisciplinary and flexible diagnostic workflows. This paper aims to tell these evolving aspects of immunodeficiencies, which are summarized in five key messages, through introducing and exemplifying five clinical cases, focusing on diseases that could benefit targeted therapy.
原发性免疫缺陷病(PIDs)是一大类且数量不断增加的疾病,通常与反复感染有关。然而,如今我们知道,除了对病原体易感性增加外,PIDs常常还伴有与器官或血液系统自身免疫、自身炎症及淋巴细胞增殖相关的后果。随着这一概念的发展,技术也取得了进步,这得益于新的基因检测(如下一代测序)所提供的新的且已确立的诊断可能性。然而,还需要理解通过这些强大方法检测到的大量基因变异。这意味着要超越基因检测结果,借助临床表型以及免疫或其他分子检测,以便我们能够证实意义不确定的基因变异的致病作用和/或更好地界定潜在的病理生理机制。此外,由于检测结果能快速获取,实验室免疫测定对于诊断许多PIDs仍然至关重要,即便在筛查情况下也是如此。不同专业之间的整合以及多学科灵活诊断流程的发展至关重要。本文旨在通过介绍并举例五个临床病例,讲述免疫缺陷病的这些不断演变的方面,这些方面总结为五条关键信息,重点关注可从靶向治疗中获益的疾病。