[Immunotherapy for the treatment of acute appendicitis in children]

The immune status was studied during the development of the disease in 182 children who were operated on for acute appendicitis. T lymphocytes and their subpopulations circulating in the blood, as well as B lymphocytes, immunoglobulins A, M, G, and immune complexes were determined. The character of changes of these values before the operation and in various postoperative periods were determined. The effect of complex treatment, including T-activin, on the clinical and immunological parameters in children with acute appendicitis was appraised. Analysis of the results showed that a transitory immunodepressive state forms in children with the disease, which is more marked in the destructive form, with normalization of the main values of cell-mediated and humoral immunity by the 7th day after appendectomy. In a complicated course of acute appendicitis the state of immunodeficiency is torpid in character and does not return to normal values even after clinical recovery, i.e. before discharge from the clinic. Inclusion of the immunostimulating agent T-activin into the complex treatment of patients with appendicitis ensures a more rapid involution of the main clinical manifestations of the disease. The therapeutic effect was most pronounced in destructive appendicitis: after 3 days of treatment the pain syndrome was encountered twice less frequently and intestinal paresis more than twice less frequently in these patients, and the term of hospital stay (8.8 +/- 0.4 days) was less shorter than for children of the control group (12.2 +/- 1.9 days) who did not receive T-activin in the therapeutic complex.