IMMUNOLOGICAL CHANGES TO GROWTH HORMONE THERAPY IN GROWTH HORMONE DEFICIENCY

Abstract

In order to determine the role of growth hormone (GH) on immunological functions, several kinds of lymphocyte subsets and killer cell activities including natural killer (NK), interferone-augmented NK, and lymphokine activated killer (LAK) celles were studied in 12 children and 12 adults with GH deficiency. The results were compared with age-matched normal controls. Adult patients had been previously treated with hGH in childhood. In child patients, NK and LAK activities were significantly low before hGH therapy, but they increased to normal levels after one year of hGH therapy. However, a significant low percentage of Leu 7+ cells was observed both before and after hGH therapy in 11 children. In adult patients, NK activities were normal, but interferon-augmented NK activities and LAK activities were low. However, LAK activities increased after one month of hGH therapy. These results suggest that in children GH deficiency may cause the defective killer cell activities, and that hGH therapy may recover the function of killer cells, though the number of killer cells remained at a low level. In adult patients, short term hGH therapy resulted in normalization of LAK activities but did not resulted in normalization of other cellular immunological abnormalities. Therefore, GH is thought to be indispensable to develop and maintain some killer cell activities.