Re: Medscape on DS and Immune system

[Guest guest]

this is very interesting!! i have been to a thing where they talked on

simlilair issues immunity and the t cells. Nahtan has low subimmunoglobulins

hence

why he was alwyas soo sick but he has gotten better with age, not sick as

often but when he does get sick its usually pretty bad, especially since he is

allergic to penecillin, and sulfa drugs, and has had a resistent psuedmonis

virus in the past, and now this fall, became MRSA positive, meaning he will

always be a carrier making some infections even harder to get rid of, rrrr. Ive

been very worried he will get septic or a bad strep infecton taking my angel

away, i just pray everyday. And try to make his life as happy as i can for

him. shawna

[Guest guest]

Thank you Margaret,

As always wonderful information.

Irma

>

> (http://www.medscape.com/sendurl)

>

> Adaptive Immune System Abnormalities Seen in Down's Syndrome

>

>

>

> NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Dec 28 - The diminished T and B cell

expansion

> that occurs in children with Down's syndrome represents intrinsic

abnormalities

> in the adaptive immune system, not simply the result of precocious

aging, new

> research indicates.

> In a related study, researchers show that Down's syndrome

increases the risk

> of death in children with sepsis. Both reports appear in the

December issue

> of the Journal of Pediatrics.

> Previous studies have documented an increased risk of infections,

> hematologic malignancies, and autoimmune diseases in Down's

syndrome patients,

> supporting the presence of an immunodeficient state, senior author

Dr. Ester de

> Vries, from the Jeroen Bosch Hospital, Arnhem, the Netherlands,

and colleagues

> note.

> To better characterize the immunodeficiency, the researchers

analyzed

> lymphocyte populations in 96 healthy children with Down's syndrome

and compared the

> data to that obtained from healthy children without Down's

syndrome.

> In the first years of life, Down's syndrome patients had

diminished

> expansion of T and B lymphocytes, the report indicates. Over time,

the T cell

> populations tended to normalize, whereas the B cell levels

remained markedly

> diminished. In fact, 61% of the B cell values in Down's syndrome

patients fell below

> the 5th percentile of normal.

> " In the children with Down's syndrome, this early expansion of T

and B

> lymphocytes was severely abrogated, irrespective of the frequency

of infections or

> development of autoimmunity. This strongly suggests that a

disturbance of

> the adaptive immune system is, in fact, intrinsically present in

Down's

> syndrome and is not acquired later as a consequence of precocious

aging, as has been

> suggested, " Dr. de Vries' team concludes.

> In the second study, M. Garrison and colleagues, from the

> University of Washington in Seattle, examined case fatality rates

in septic children

> with or without Down's syndrome. Of the more than 32,000 cases

included in the

> study, 620 involved Down's syndrome patients.

> The overall hospital mortality rate was 11%, the report indicates.

A total

> of 106 of the Down's syndrome patients (17%) died during

hospitalization.

> After adjusting for potential demographic, pathogenic, and

comorbid confounders,

> septic patients with Down's syndrome were 30% more likely to die

than their

> peers without Down's syndrome.

> In an accompanying editorial, Dr. D. , from the

University of

> Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia, comments that the

current

> studies " further delineate peripheral blood lymphocyte alterations

in children

> with Down's syndrome and increased risk of death from sepsis. "

More studies

> are needed to better understand the mechanisms responsible for

these

> associations, he adds.

> J Pediatr 2005;147:723-725,744-752.

> ____________________________________

>

>

>

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