Early changes of peripheral blood CD4+T cells and the related cytokines in patients with severe trauma

Objective To investigate the early changes of CD4 + T cells and the relevant cytokines in blood of patients with severe trauma.Methods Sixty-one consecutive patients with trauma admitted into the 97th Hospital of PLA from September 2009 to November 2011 were enrolled in this study.The exclusion criteria included:① Patients were younger than 18 or older than 75 years.②Patients received blood transfusion.③Those suffered from immune system disorders,tumors or diabetes,or recent history of virus,bacteria or parasites infections.④ Those had current or recent treatment with corticosteroids or immunosuppressive drugs.According to ISS score ≥ 16,there were 61 traumatic patients divided into mild trauma group and severe trauma group.Seventeen healthy volunteers were taken as control subjects.At admission,the peripheral venous blood samples of patients were taken to count the number of CD3+,CD4 +,CD8 + T cells by flow cytometry and to detect TNF-α,INF-γ,IL-1,IL4,IL-6 and IL-12 levels in plasma by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay,meanwhile the ratio of Th1 / Th2 type cytokine were calculated.Data were analyzed with t test and ANOVA or Kruskal-Wallis test by using SPSS version 16.0package.P value ＜ 0.05 was considered to be statistical significance.Results Compared with control group,mild trauma and severe trauma groups showed a similar decrease in number of CD3 + T cells,and severe trauma group showed a most significant decrease in number of CD4 + T cells.Severe trauma group had a lower INF-γ level compared with control group; IL-1 level in both mild trauma and severe trauma groups were lower than that in the control group; INF-γ/ IL-6 in severe group was significantly lower than that in the mild group.However,INF-γ IL-6 in mild group was higher than that in the control group.Conclusions The early stage of severe trauma exhibits a significant decrease in number of both CD3 + and CD4 +T cells,accompanied by a significant reduction in most of cytokines,and has a tendency of shift to Th2 type cytokine.Therefore,the changes of immune cells should be promptly and successively monitored after severe trauma. Key words: Severe trauma;  CD4+T cell ;  CD3+T cell ;  CD8+T cell ;  Cytokine ;  Immune ;  Blood ;  Early diagnosis