Peripheral blood CD19~+CD23~+B cell expression in children with different severity of asthma

Objective To investigate the expression and significance of CD19+CD23+B cells in children with mild, moderate and severe asthma. Methods Fifty-six patients with asthma episodes were enrolled from the in-patient and out-patient department of Shanxi Women and Children′ s Hospital between February 2011 and February 2012, and graded for severity of asthma episodes as severe (group A), moderate (group B) and mild (group C). The 36 normal controls were recruited from Shanxi Epidemiological Survey of Prevalence of Asthma. Flow cytometry was em ployed to detect the percentage of CD19+CD23+B cells in peripheral blood and fluorescence enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay to measure the total serum immunoglobin E (IgE). Results Children with asthma episodes, showing the highest percentage of CD19+CD23+B cells in peripheral blood in group A, followed by groups B and C (P 0.05), presented a significantly higher percentage than control controls (P0.05). However, the difference in groups C and normal controls did not achieve statistical significance (P0.05). The level of total serum IgE was highest in group A, followed by groups B, C and normal controls (P0.05). The percentage of CD19+CD23+B cells correlated positively with total serum IgE (r=0.538, P0.05). Conclusion Children with asthma are characterized by increased peripheral blood CD19+CD23+B cell count, which increases progressively with the severity of episodes. The combination of positivity of peripheral blood CD19+CD23+B cells and total serum IgE level may be the surrogate for assessment of asthma.