Chemiluminescence of whole blood. II. Application to clinical examination of phagocytic functions of whole blood from various types of disease.

Measurements of whole blood chemiluminescence (CL) were carried out by using 0.1 ml of blood to evaluate phagocytic functions from various kinds of pediatric patients. Patients with definite bacterial infections showed an elevated background CL and high peak CL per 1000 granulocytes after stimulation with zymosan. These results suggest that granulocytes of these patients had been preactivated in vivo, their phagocytic and/or metabolic activity being enhanced. Contrary to these results, blood from the patients with viral infections showed almost no abnormalities. Patients with chronic granulomatous disease showed no significant CL by this method similar to conventional ones. This method was also shown to be a useful technique for monitoring the phagocytic functions of blood after granulocyte transfusion.