Flow cytometry analysis of peripheral blood lymphocytes from patients with bullous pemphigoid.

BACKGROUND

Bullous pemphigoid (BP) is an autoimmune disease observed in elderly subjects in which alteration of peripheral blood lymphocyte subset repartition has been described.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets from BP patients and identify immunologic changes that can be assigned either to the autoimmune disease or to the ageing process.

METHODS

Peripheral blood lymphocytes from 24 patients with BP and 24 age- and sex-matched healthy individuals were analyzed by flow cytometry and these results were compared to those obtained from young adults.

RESULTS

This study showed: (i) the presence of T-cell lymphopenia with a decreased number of CD8+ and gdgammadelta T lymphocytes in BP patients compared with younger adult controls; (ii) a high dispersion of the results in the BP population; (iii) the absence of a significant difference of lymphocyte subset levels between BP patients and age- and sex-matched controls.

CONCLUSION

This flow cytometry study suggests that the modifications of lymphocyte subpopulation values observed in BP patients are related to immunologic changes induced by age in elderly people.