[Phenotype of lymphocytes in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid of patients with lung fibrosis in the course of scleroderma].

Patients with systemic sclerosis frequently develop interstitial lung disease. One of the major sites of pathogenic activity are lymphocytes from lung interstitium. The purpose of this work was phenotype analysis of lymphocytes in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) with flow cytofluorometry. We found an increase number of CD8+ lymphocytes and CD8+/T ratio, and an reduced CD4+/CD8+ ratio in patients when compared to healthy volunteers. The diffusing capacity (DLCO) correlated positive with percentage of neutrophils and HLA-DR+ lymphocytes. There are the features of mixed type alveolitis in patients with short disease duration. We found increase number of lymphocytes, neutrophils, CD8+ lymphocytes, HLA-DR+ lymphocytes and CD25+ lymphocytes in this patients. We concluded that fluorocytometric BALF analysis may be useful for the diagnosis and management of lung involvement in patients with scleroderma before the treatment.