Circulating lymphocyte and T memory subsets in glucocorticosteroid versus IVIG treated patients with CIDP

The present study compared lymphocyte and T memory subsets in currently untreated patients with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) to glucocorticosteroid (GS) and intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) treated patients. Peripheral blood from 48 CIDP patients (21 untreated who were either treatment naïve or without treatment during the last 3 months, 17 IVIG and 10 GS treatment) and from 12 age-matched controls was evaluated using flow cytometric analysis. Our data demonstrate that long-term GS treatment is associated with reduced frequencies of total CD4+ T cells, CD4+ memory subsets and NK cells while long-term IVIG treatment is associated with alterations of the CD8+ memory compartment. Reduction of CD4+ naïve T cell counts may explain the observation that GS treatment induces prolonged clinical remission compared to IVIG treatment.