This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Dexamethasone inhibited immunoreactivity of dendritic cells in chronic ITP
Chu XX. Blood Coagul Fibrinolysis. 2010;21:564-567.
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
High-dose oral dexamethasone lowered CD80 and CD86 levels of dendritic cells in patients with newly diagnosed chronic idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura.
Thirty-six patients diagnosed with chronic ITP and treated at the hematology department of Yantai Yuhuangding Hospital in Yantai, China, were assigned to 40 mg oral dexamethasone for 4 consecutive days. Patients were compared with a control group of 10 healthy blood donors.
Compared with normal controls, expression of CD80 (51.6 ± 13.47% vs. 36.03 ± 15.43%) and CD86 (61.5 ± 15.93% vs. 40.28 ± 11.49%) was significantly higher in patients with ITP at baseline. After dexamethasone treatment, CD80 expression decreased to 36.48 ± 15.19% and CD86 expression decreased to 44.05 ± 17.7% with no significant difference between patients and controls.
Researchers also evaluated patients for IL-12p70 production in the cultured supernatants of dendritic cells. At baseline, production was higher in patients (67.52 ± 14.43 pg/mL) compared with controls (39.78 ± 10.03 pg/mL). After treatment, IL-12p70 concentration decreased to 43.90 ± 8.49 pg/mL, and researchers said there was no significant difference between the treated patients and the normal controls.
“The results presented here support that the antigen-presenting capacity of dendritic cells from ITP patients was increased, which plays a role in the production of pathogenic autoantibodies,” the researchers concluded. “Dexamethasone exerts its regulatory effects in ITP via modulation of the stimulatory capacity of dendritic cells, which might be the main mechanism of the amelioration of ITP.”
Follow HemOncToday.com
on Twitter.