ORIGINAL ARTICLES   

Panminerva Medica 1999 June;41(2):149-51

Copyright © 2000 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Fungi of Candida species in the pharynx and some parameters of humoral and cellular immunity in patients

Kurnatowski P., Kurnatowska A. J.

From the Centre for Treatment of Parasitic Diseases and Mycoses, Department of Conservative Dentistry, Medical University of Lodz, Poland

Back­ground. The phar­ynx is one of the ­open spac­es ­where fun­gi can set­tle eas­i­ly. The pur­pose of the inves­ti­ga­tion was to esti­mate an over­all prev­a­lence of fun­gal col­o­ni­za­tion and ­some param­e­ters of humo­ral and ­cell immu­nity.
Meth­ods. The ­study con­sist­ed of 167 ­patients, ­from ­whom ­swabs of the pos­te­ri­or and lat­er­al ­part of the phar­ynx ­were tak­en for myco­log­i­cal exam­ina­tions, dur­ing ­which ­tests ­based on mor­pho­log­i­cal and bio­chem­i­cal (zymo­gram, aux­a­no­gram) char­ac­ter­is­tics ­were ­used. In all cas­es, the leu­ko­cyte ­count, over­all pro­tein lev­el, and pro­tein indi­vid­u­al frac­tions ­were deter­mined. ­Also deter­mined ­were the lev­els of IgA, IgM and IgG immu­no­glob­u­lin in ­blood ser­um, and IgA immu­no­glob­u­lin (S-IgA) in sali­va. At the ­same ­time, blas­tic trans­for­ma­tion ­test and ­rosette ­tests: E (ER) to deter­mine lym­pho­cytes T ­count, as ­well as EA (EAR) and EAC (­EACR) to ­detect lym­pho­cytes B, ­were per­formed.
­Results. Fun­gal infec­tion was ­found in 2/3 of ­patients. Fun­gi ­were clas­si­fied as belong­ing to six spe­cies of Can­di­da, ­which are con­sid­ered to be impor­tant etio­log­ical fac­tors of mycos­es; the ­most com­mon fun­gus was Can­di­da albi­cans (in 86 cas­es). All cas­es of can­did­o­sis ­showed a ­decreased ­count of lym­pho­cytes T, ­with ­their func­tion defi­cient, and ­most of ­them a low S-IgA lev­el in sali­va (­over ­three ­times low­er ­than the ­norm) and ­high ­mean val­ues for sed­i­men­ta­tion ­rate.
Con­clu­sions. In ­patients in our ­study the IgA lev­el in ser­um ­remained with­in nor­mal lim­its, yet the ­ratio of ­this frac­tion to oth­er immu­no­glob­u­lins devi­at­ed ­from ­that in ­healthy indi­vid­u­als.