[Does oral zinc improve the cellular immunity of patients with alcoholic cirrhosis?]

A depressed response to delayed hypersensitivity skin tests is frequent in patients with alcoholic cirrhosis. Immune dysfunction in these patients is presumably dependent on nutritional factors. Zinc deficiency, a common finding in alcoholic cirrhosis, inhibits cellular immunity and might be one of these factors. The aim of our study was to show that zinc supplementation may improve cellular immunity in patients with alcoholic cirrhosis. We therefore compared 2 groups of patients: patients in the treated group (n = 18) had a daily oral intake of zinc-sulfate, 200 mg, during 2 months, patients in the non treated group (n = 20) received no supplementation. Both groups had a free diet. Delayed hypersensitivity skin tests to 7 antigens were performed with the Multitest IMC System at the beginning and at the end of the study. The immunity score was determined by the number of tests producing a skin induration greater than 2 mm. The evolutive index, calculated in each patient, was the difference between the final and initial immunity scores. The 2 groups were similar for all studied parameters. Cumulated immunity scores improved from 35 to 53 in treated patients (p less than 0.02), and from 42 to 44 (NS) in non treated patients. The evolutive index was 1 +/- 1.4 in treated patients and 0.1 +/- 1 in non treated patients (p less than 0.05). We conclude that in patients with alcoholic cirrhosis, daily intake of zinc sulfate, 200 mg, improves responsiveness to delayed hypersensitivity skin tests.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)