Chemotactic disorders

Clinical disorders of phagocyte chemotaxis have heterogeneous etiologies. The physiologic defect can involve adherence, the cytoskeleton, deformability, granule dysfunction, regulation of receptors, or a variety of soluble mediators. At present, successful clinical management depends on early and compulsive attention to infectious complications. A host of new immunomodulators (GM-CSF, gamma interferon, tumor necrosis factor, etc.), made available through recombinant gene technology, are now under study and may provide new and more effective means of treatment for these life-threatening disorders.