the state of cell mediated immunity among hepatitis b surface ,antgeni carriers in iran,

cell-mediated immune (cmi) s t a t us and sub- popul at i ons o f pe r ipheral b l ood lymphocytes were investigated in one hundre d volunt a ry blood donors who were car r ier s of ag • he s a signi f i c ant decr e ase of t otal t-cells observed in hb ag carri e rs as compared t o normal controls. the percens t age o f active t-cells a nd b-lymphocytes did not d i f f e r signi f icant ly between the t wo groups . addi t ion of aut ologous serum from he ag c a r r iers t o s t heir l ymphocyt e s reduced the numbe r of detectabl e cells in he ag carriers . this reduction coul d be due to the s presence of a r osette i nhi bitory f actor in their serum. our studies demonstrated a failur e o f cmi among hb ags car r i ers detected by the l e ukocyte migr ation i nhibition (lmi) test. this failure cannot be attributed to the presence of he ag-ab complexes in their serum. it is s possible that specific failure of cmi allows the hepatitis b virus to remain harmless in carriers a hepatitis b surface-antigen (he ag); hepatitis bs coreantigen (he ag) and hepatitis be-antigen (he ag), c e have been established as indicating ineffectivity in viral hepatitis b ({i, 6 , 20, 28). a number of infected individuals also developed clini cal evidence of disease and he ag may s the serum of some subjects for a long rema•ln present i•n time (18). it has been suggested that to a defect in cmi, the persistence of hb ag s whether liver disease is is related present or not, and impairment of the lymphocyte response to phytohaemagglutinin (pha) in this group is presented in evide• nee (8, •9 , 13, 24, 25) .in contrast, other workers report a normal respons e t o pha in healthy carriers of he ag and s they conclude that the defective t-cell response is relat ed to the live!' disease rather than the immune system (31). dudley et al (8) have suggested that liver damage occurring after hepatitis b infection, may be an effect of thymus-dependent lymphocytes (12). a variety of in-vitro tests have been employed to demonstrate the status of cellular immunity (30, 35). amongst these the inhibition of leukocyte migration by different specific and non-specific antigens appears to be a sensitive and convenient procedure (37). leukocyte inhibitory factor (lif) production in the presence of the virus itself has already been demonstrated ill) .in a preliminary study lto et al. (14) reported that migration of leukocytes could be inhibited by serum containinghb .ag. frei et al. (11) have also reported the effect of s purified, partially purfied and non purified hb ag ons lymphocytes in acute cases of hepatitis b using the leukocyte migration inhibition test. the prevalence of hbsag among some 200,000 voluntary blood donors in iran was found to be 3.5%(10). we have evaluated the subpopulations of t and b lymphocytes in hb ag carriers and applied the lmi test in the presence s of pha, purified protein. derivative (ppd) , crude hb~g positive serum and purified hb~g, in order to define cmi in hs r.q ~ . ~ carr•lers.