Interferon production, cellular and humoral immunity in splenectomized patients

Undetectable levels of circulating interferon were found in 35 splenectomized patients and in 14 controls. In addition, no differences in virus, purified protein derivative (PPD), and phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) induced interferon production were observed between the patients and the controls. Virus induced lymphocyte transformation tended to be reduced after splenectomy, but only the herpes simplex virus (HSV) induced transformation index was significantly reduced in splenectomized patients without residual splenic tissue (P less than 0.05). In contrast, the PHA lymphocyte transformation was unchanged in patients and controls. The number of natural viral antibodies in splenectomized patients did not differ from that of controls. Furthermore, there were no major differences in the magnitude of the titers of the sero-positive cases between the various groups. Thus, splenectomy does not interfere with interferon production in vitro, and as seen from natural viral antibodies, no impairment of humoral immunity was observed. The reduced HSV lymphocyte transformation may indicate an impaired lymphocyte function after splenectomy.