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Critically ill patients: immunological evidence of inflammation in muscle biopsy
1Centro Dino Ferrari, Istituto di Clinica Neurologica dell' Università di Milano, IRCCS, Ospedale Maggiore, Policlinico, Italy.
Aim And Method:
To verify whether muscle necrosis in critically ill patients could be due to an inflammatory process, we tested muscle biopsies from five intensive care patients with different inflammation-specific immunocytochemical markers (antibodies anti-class I major histocompatibility complex products (class I MHCP or HLA I), membrane attack complex (MAC), T lymphocytes helper-inducer (CD4), cytotoxic (CD8) and pan-B-lymphocytes).
Results:
In three patients muscle biopsy showed class I MHCP positivity on the surface membrane of several groups of fibres, mainly perifascicular, and scattered microvascular deposits of MAC. In the other two patients muscle biopsy did not show class I MHCP and MAC positivity.
Conclusion:
Our results suggest that inflammation may be a component of muscle damage in some critically ill patients.