Introduction: Derangement of systemic and mucosal immunity, which are the integral components of the immune system, increases the risk of septic complications in patients postoperatively. The aims of this study were to investigate the integrity of systemic immunity as well as the mucosal immune system in patients with pancreatic cancer (PC), chronic pancreatitis (CP) and obstructive jaundice (OJ).Method: Healthy controls, as well as four groups of patients were studied. These included; jaundiced patients with PC, jaundiced patients secondary to benign disease (choledocholithiasis), non-jaundiced patients with PC and non-jaundiced patients with CP. The study evaluated the nutritional status including anthropometric measurements and the serum proteins: retinal binding protein (RBP), transferrin (TRF) and prealbumin (PALB). This study also evaluated systemic immunity in terms of total lymphocyte count, lymphocyte subsets (CD4+, CD8+, CD25+and CD56+), tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF- alpha), interleukin-1alpha (IL-1 alpha) and complement components; and mucosal immunity in terms of CD3+, CD4+, CD8+, CD20+, CD57+, CD68+ and mast cells. Results: 78 patients were recruited (including 39 males) as follows: normal controls (n=17), benign OJ (n=9), patients with PC with jaundice (n=23), non-jaundiced patients with PC (n=20) and CP (n=9). Circulating CD25+ and CD4+ were significantly lower in the PC group whereas CD8+ showed increased levels in the same patients with a significant decrease in OJ patients when compared with controls. Circulating CD56+ showed no statistically significant difference between all four groups. In addition, IL-1 and TNF-alpha showed no statistically significant difference in all groups when compared with the control group. Also, C3 and CH50 showed significantly raised levels in PC with jaundice when compared with the control group. On the other hand mucosal lymphocyte subsets showed no statistically significant difference among all groups in comparison with the control group. As for prealbumin and transferrin, both showed significantly low levels in OJ, PC with jaundice and with PC when compared to healthy controls. Survival analysis for both PC groups was carried out and showed no difference in terms of age, however PC patients who survived over 13 months showed increased levels of prealbumin as well as low levels of CH50.Conclusion: Patients with PC both with and without jaundice showed some signs of altered and dysfunctional systemic immunity as well as a reduction in serum proteins. These findings may have implications on the disease progression and postoperative complications. This may warrant therapeutic interventions to restore nutrition and improve immunity before major surgical intervention is planned which could result in improving prognosis.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:764295 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Darwish, Ammar |
| Publisher | University of Manchester |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/systemic-and-mucosal-immunity-in-patients-with-periampullary-cancer-obstructive-jaundice-and-chronic-pancreatitis(b6e3ee83-3e4e-4b34-8c36-8eb75c3961cc).html |
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