Antibody Response in Egyptian Splenomegaly

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Summary and Conclusion A comparison is made between the antibody response in: (a) Normal persons. (b) Cases of splenomegaly unoperated on, though admitted and prepared for operation. (c) Cases operated on after immunisation. (d) Cases operated on before immunisation. Compared with the first group, the antibody response in the second and third ones was found to be rather poor. In the fourth group it almost approached the average normal in those patients immunised one month after operation, but not in those immunised 16 days after it. This improvement in response is probably due to the elapse of sufficient time allowing a compensatory hypertrophy of healthy lymphoid tissue. The poor response in the other cases is ascribed to the poverty of the fibrosed abnormal spleen in reticulo-endothelial cells some of which are blocked by red blood corpuscles and leucocytes. This abnormality probably explains why the removal of the spleen had no effect on an already low response; and it is suggested that such a spleen is an almost useless organ from the immunological point of view.

This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit: