Özet:

Objective: Hepatitis B is an important infectious disease, which can cause severe chronic cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma in 1-5 % of adult patients. Whereas, Hepatitis D is a defective virus infection that develops in people with HBsAg (+). It has been known that Hepatitis D virus has a cytopathic effect but the immune mechanisms which play a role in the development of this disease are still under investigation. Therefore, in this study it was aimed to investigate whether lymphocytes numbers change in a variety of patients with chronic hepatitis. Methods: In this study, 22 patients (12 females and 10 males) with chronic liver diseases were examined. These patients were compared to the control group which consists of 20 healthy individuals (12 females, 8 males). A flow cytometry assay was conducted to examine T lymphocyte subgroups using CD3, CD4, CD8, CD25, CD56, CD161 and Vα24 monoclonal antibodies in peripheral blood samples of both patient and control groups. Results: The mean age of patient group and control group were 45.87±11.18 and 41.45±7.23 year respectively. The HbsAg was found to be positive in all patients with the exception of one patient. 15 patients also exhibited Anti Delta Antigen positive as well as HbsAg. Six of these patients have been diagnosed with chronic liver disease, 7 of them have been diagnosed liver chrosis and two of them have been diagnosed with hepathoma. No difference was found between the patients and healthy controls in terms of total T lymphocyte, CD4+Th cells CD3+CD56+ NKT cells and Vα24+CD161+ iNKT cells. However, the levels of CD8+ Tc cells, CD16+56+ NK cells and CD4+CD25+ T lymphocytes were found to be lower in patients bloods as compared to the healthy controls. Conclusions: These results suggest that HbsAg positivity may cause the decreases of the cells which are responsible for cytotoxic response. Nevertheless, further studies are required to explain the immunological response to the chronic hepatitis.

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