Correlation in hemodialysis patients and renal allograft recipients between percent T lymphocytes in peripheral blood and in vitro lymphocyte responses to nonspecific mitogenic agents.

Both hemodialysis and renal allograft recipients have a significantly reduced number of total T lymphocytes per microliter of blood. Simultaneous in vitro lymphocyte responsiveness to phytohemagglutinin (PHA) and pokeweed mitogen (PWM) revealed in the normal subjects, a positive correlation (r = +0.427) between percent T lymphocytes and PHA and a negative correlation (r = -0.525) between percent T lymphocytes and PWM. Such trends were not observed in the hemodialysis patients and transplant recipients. Thus, the enumeration of lymphocytes as T cells appears to provide no clear indication of their functional capacity to respond to mitogenic stimulation in these two categories of patients.