[Cellular immunoreaction to S-antigen in patients with uveitis and optic neuritis]

In vitro lymphocyte stimulation reaction to retinal S-antigen was evaluated in 115 patients of anterior uveitis, posterior uveitis/pan-uveitis, and optic neuritis, the positive rate being 34% (18/53), 41.5% (17/41), and 57.1% (12/21) respectively. It is speculated that such immunoresponse may be secondary to the exposition or the release of retinal antigens by various causes, leading to activation or augmentation of meager or low-affinity S-antigen-specific lymphocytes in healthy individuals to start the pathogenic autoimmune process. However, the authors also found that the stimulation index to PHA differed insignificantly between the control and experimental groups, indicating that there was no cellular immuno-hypofunction in the experimental patients.