Effects of prophylactic intravenous immunoglobulin-G therapy on humoral and cellular immune components and their functions in burned patients

Abstract

In this study on patients with thermal trauma, we examined the effects of standard therapy plus prophylactic polyclonal immunoglobulin G (IgG) treatment of humoral and cellular contents, cell phenotype and function of the immune system, and compare these with those found in patients receiving only standard therapy. The quantitative, peripheralblood mononuclear cell panel shows a decrease in the total number of T-lymphocytes and an increase in the natural killer (NK) cells of standard therapy patients 3 weeks following the burn. We found that intravenous IgG treatment does not have an important effect on T lymphocytes and the proportion of their subpopulations, but rather causes a significant decrease in the number of B lymphocytes and an increase in the number of NK cells. When comparing the DNA synthetic response to mitogenic and antigenic stimuli in patient's T and B lymphocytes using phytohaemagglutinin, pokeweed mitogen or allogenic mixed cells in separate in vitro cell cultures, the highest suppressive effect of thermal trauma is seen in the cells derived from the patients who had been given prophylactic IgG therapy. The presented data confirm that thermal trauma causes an immunosuppressive effect and indicate that prophylactic polyclonal IgG therapy increased the quantitative and functional suppression of the specific immune system while additionally increasing the cellular levels of the non-specific immune system, each system having been previously stimulated by thermal trauma.