Detection of lymphocyte subsets,regulatory T cells in peripheral blood of patients with acute leukemia and its clinical significance

Objective:To study the changes of lymphocyte subsets,regulatory T cells in peripheral blood of patients with acute leukemia(AL) and its clinical significance.Methods: The level of peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets,regulatory T cells of 60 AL patients and 40 normal controls were detected with flow cytometry.Results: Compared with the normal controls,the percentage of CD3+ T cell,CD4+Tcell,CD16+CD56+ NK cell and the ratio of CD4+/CD8+ decreased obviously in newly diagnosed AL group(P0.05),while the percentage of CD8+ T cell and CD19+ B cell increased significantly(P 0.01).The percentage of CD4+T cell and the ratio of CD4+/CD8+ in acute lymphoblastic leukemia(ALL) group were much lower than those in acute myelogenous leukemia(AML) group(P0.01).Compared with that of control group,the proportion of CD4+CD25 high Treg cells and CD4+ CD25+ T cells in newly diagnosed AL group were significantly increased(P0.01).Conclusion: Cellular immune function is significantly abnormal in patients with AL.Compared with AML,patients with ALL had more poor cellular immune function.The increased number of CD4+ CD25 high Treg cells might be one of the important reason of immunosuppression in AL.Detection of lymphocyte subsets and regulatory T cells are of clinical value on evaluation of therapeutic effect and prognosis of AL.