CD83 POSITIVE DENDRITIC CELLS IN PATIENTS WITH HCV-RELATED CHRONIC LIVER DISEASE WITH OR WITHOUT HAEMATOLOGICAL MALIGNANCIES

Dendritic cells (DCs) are potent professional antigen-presenting cells, involved in the immune re- sponse against viral infections and different haematological malignancies and lymphoproliferative dis- orders. Defective function of DCs in hepatitis C virus (HCV) related liver diseases and in different haematological malignancies has been reported. In this study we evaluated CD83 positive DCs count in the peripheral blood of 45 patients with HCV infection with and without haematological ma- lignancies by flow cytometry. CD83 positive DCs count was highly significantly decreased in HCV- related chronic liver disease patients (group I, n= 15) compared to normal controls (group III, n= 15) (11.85 ± 6.01/ul vs 25.52 ± 6.69/ul), z = 4.31, p 0.001. Similarly CD83+ DCs count was highly sig- nificantly decreased in HCV infected patients with haematological malignancies (group II, n+ 30) compared to normal controls (group III) (3.98 ± 2.78/ ul vs 25.52 ± 6.69/ ul), z=5.41, p 0.001). In-terestingly, CD83+ DCs count was highly significantly decreased in group II compared to group I (3.98 ± 2.78/ ul vs 11.85 ± 6.01 respectively, z = 3.84, p 0.001). We found that CD83 + DCs count was highly significantly decreased in patients with child C class than those with child B class and those in child A class (H = 32.62, p 0.001). Patients with cryoglobulinemia had significant lower CD83 + DCs count than those without, (z = 2.045, P 0.05). Different stages of lymphoma (stage IIlb, IVa IVb) were not significantly different regarding DCs count (H = 7.36, p 0.05), and DCs count was not correlated with either performance status (PS) (r= -0.22, p 0.05) or with International Prognostic Index (LPI) (r =-0.14, p 0.05) in group II. We concluded that CD83 + DCs count de- creased in peripheral blood of patients with HCV related liver decreases with or without haematolog- ical malignancies being more decreased in cases associated with haematological malignancies. This may be implicated in the immunopathology of liver damage and chronicity and probably complica- tions of liver disease, also may be considerably important in the pathogenesis of different haematolog- ical malignancies. There is a potential role for DCs based therapy together with other lines of treat-ment. However the possible role of DCs based intervention in HCV related liver disease is less clear and needs further studies.