HOLISTIC APPROACH TO THE IMMUNOBIOLOGY OF AGING (VIEW ON THE TURN OF MILLENIUM)

Among many functions of the body affected by the complex process of aging, the immune system, primarily due to declining of thymic function, the ancient and conserved evolutionary process, undergoes complex remodelling in the second part of life, with recapitulation of inversely evolutionary pattern of the immune system. In approaching the complex analysis of age-associated derangement of the immune system, homeostasis, and its clinical consequences, classical monoclonal lymphoproliferative syndrome (CLL) accompanied by a myriad of cellular and humoral defects, has been selected as appropriate and useful model for studies of impact T-cell and B-cell defects on appearance, evolution of clinical manifestations and outcome of CLL syndrome. Therefore imbalance in cascade secretion of a number of Th-1 (pro-inflammatory cytokines) and/or Th-2 (anti-inflammatory cytokines) in CLL patients with their pleiotropy, redundancy, synergistic and antagonistic activity and parallelism can cause variety of clinical manifestations as recurrent infections, systemic inflammation/sepsis, immunodeficiency, autoimmune disorder, indolent antiself malignancy, and/or other diverse secondary tumours.