[The immune status of patients with foot mycosis and eczema]

Thirty-five patients with squamous-hyperkeratotic mycoses and onychomycoses were examined, as were 68 ones with exudative mycoses of the soles and 97 ones with disseminated eczemas. The following tests have been employed in the study: direct and indirect leucocyte migration inhibition, investigation of the lymphocyte functional activity, skin test with fungal antigen, quantitation of the absolute counts of lymphocytes, neutrophils and phagocytizing neutrophils, T and B rosette forming cells. Patients with mycoses of the soles with involvement of the nail plates, as well as those suffering from eczemas combined with mycoses developed a most marked reduction of the activity of the leukocyte migration inhibition factor (LMIF) and of the T lymphocyte mediator activity in the presence of the fungal antigen. The studies have detected the pattern of the leukocyte phagocytic reaction disturbances in the patients with mycoses and eczemas of the soles. No inhibiting effect of LMIF on the leukocytes in these patients appears to be due to the defect of the target cells and not of the producer cells. The direct and indirect leukocyte migration inhibition tests are recommended to be included in the complex of immunologic tests used in examinations of patients with exudative mycoses and eczemas of the soles and with the transitional and combined forms of these two conditions.