Correspondence
Lymphocyte phenotypes in systemic sclerosis
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Although the pathophysiology of systemic sclerosis (SSc) is not fully clarified, there are considerable data implicating abnormalities of microvascular changes, fibroblast activation and immune system abnormalities. Immune system activation may play a part as a stimulus in both fibrotic and vascular damage.1 To investigate the immune system abnormalities in the pathogenesis of SSc we evaluated lymphocyte phenotypes in patients with SSc and healthy controls by flow cytometry (Epics Profile II) for total T (CD3), T helper (CD4), T supressor (CD8), B lymphocyte cell surface marker (CD19), activation marker (CD25) and natural killer (NK) cell surface marker NKH-1 (CD56).
We studied 29 patients (27 women, two men) 16 limited, 12 diffuse and one overlap who fulfilled preliminary criteria for
classification of SSc.2 Anti-nuclear antibody was positive
in 25 (86.2%) and anti-Scl70 antibodies was positive in seven (24.1 %) patients. The age range of the patients was 20-63 years (mean
(SEM) 40 (5)) and the mean (SEM) disease duration
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