[Cellular immune status and microphage function in Behçet's disease].

Besides routine clinical and laboratory investigations, several lymphocyte and polymorphonuclear leukocyte function tests were performed in 10 patients with Behçet's disease (1 of Turkish and 9 of German descent, 5 of them male and 5 female). No true abnormality could be detected in both number of T- and B-cells as well as in T-cell response to PHA-stimulation. In contrast, there was a significant enhancement of microphage migration and chemotaxis in all of our patients compared with a large control group of healthy individuals. The very same investigations carried out in 10 patients suffering from benign recurrent aphthosis (most of them of Mikulicz's type) showed no difference to our controls. And above all, there was no increase of chemotactic microphage function. Therefore, assessment of microphage chemotaxis has become an important investigative procedure for in-vitro testing of atypical or low-grade manifestations of Behçet's disease. Abnormal polymorphonuclear leukocyte chemotaxis indeed give some explanation of non-specific cutaneous pathergy as a phenomenon and, no doubt, should be superior in diagnostic reliability as abnormal chemotaxis can even be detected in patients suffering from faint relapses of Behçet's disease.