[Granulocyte adherence and chemotaxis in children (author's transl)]

Granulocyte adherence to endothelial surfaces associated with their chemotactic property enables these cells to leave the peripheral blood and to migrate into the tissue. This study was performed to investigate the effect of bacterial and viral infections as well as various kinds of therapies on these leukocyte functions. The adherence of control granulocytes to nylon fibers was 70%. In contrast to viral infections bacterial infections increased the adherence to 91%. Following the treatment with high dose methotrexate or vincristine the adherence was reduced to 20%. This granulocyte function defect was evident up to 14 days after the high dose methotrexate infusion. An age dependency of granulocyte adherence was not observed. In addition, viral infections as well as cytostatic therapy did not effect granulozyte chemotaxis. But bacterial infections and various defined phagocytic defects impaired the granulocyte chemotactic activity.