Depression of cellular immunity after open-heart surgery

Area of Science:

• Immunology
• Surgical Medicine

Background:

• Cell-mediated immunity plays a crucial role in surgical recovery.
• Assessing immune function in patients undergoing major surgery is clinically significant.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate changes in cell-mediated immunity following open-heart surgery.
• To evaluate the efficacy of a whole blood test system for monitoring immune responses.

Main Methods:

• Investigated cell-mediated immunity in 45 open-heart surgery patients using a whole blood test system.
• Stimulated peripheral blood lymphocytes with nonspecific mitogens (phytohemagglutinin, concanavalin A, pokeweed mitogen) and specific antigens (tuberculin PPD, herpes simplex virus).
• Tested patients pre-operatively, 7 days post-operatively, and 2 weeks post-operatively, comparing to a healthy control group.

Main Results:

• No significant pre-operative differences were observed between patients and controls.
• A marked decrease in lymphocyte response to all stimulants was noted 7 days post-operation.
• Two weeks post-operation, lymphocyte proliferation increased for tuberculin PPD and herpes simplex virus, with a trend towards increase for nonspecific mitogens.

Conclusions:

• Open-heart surgery temporarily suppresses cell-mediated immunity.
• Immune function shows partial recovery by two weeks, particularly for specific antigens.
• The whole blood assay is advantageous for large-scale immune monitoring in surgical patients.