THE THYMUS AND OTHER LYMPHOID TISSUES IN CONGENITAL AGAMMAGLOBULINEMIA

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The capacity to develop delayed hypersensitivity to Candida albicans, 2,4 dinitrofluorobenzene and 2,4 dinitrochlorobenzene was examined in a child with thymic alymphoplasia and congenital agammaglobulinemia, or congenital alymphocytosis, and in 7 patients with the nonlymphopenic form of congenital agammaglobulinemia. Delayed hypersensitivity to Candida albicans was also tested in 5 children with neither lymphopenia nor agammaglobulinemia. All of the 12 persons without lymphopenia demonstrated delayed hypersensitivity reactions to the intradermal injection of a Candida extract but the child with congenital alymphocytosis did not. Hyperergia to the halogenated dinitrobenzenes was induced in 5 of the 7 nonlymphopenic agammaglobulinemic patients, but could not be induced in the other 2 nor in the child with alymphocytosis. Normal skin and thymic tissues transplanted to the child with alymphocytosis survived without evidence of rejection until the patient's death due to bilateral pneumonitis 40 days later, although there was some degeneration of the transplanted thymic tissue. The donor of the transplanted tissues proved to be hypersensitive to Candida, and 22 days after the homografting, the recipient was shown to have acquired this hyperergia. There was no improvement in the patient's condition nor was there a significant rise in circulating lymphocytes after the thymic implants. The data suggest that the impairment in the capacity for the development of delayed hypersensitivity as well as the survival of the homografts observed in this child with thymic alymphoplasia may be attributable to the paucity of lymphocytes seen in this condition.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: