Lack of Effect of Chronic Hepatitis C Virus Infection on T-Cell Cytokine Production in Chronic Hemodialysis Patients

It has been shown that chronic hemodialysis modifies, to some extent, the normal immune response by both T and B lymphocytes elicited by antigenic stimulation, e.g. by impairing the T-cell-dependent response after vaccination. A new technique, i.e. flow cytometry, enables to assess intracytoplasmically, at the single cell level, the production of a given cytokine. By using it, we studied in healthy volunteers (HV) and in chronic hemodialysis (CHD) patients, with respect to their hepatitis C virus (HCV) status, the production by the T lymphocytes of type 1, and type 2 cytokines. We studied the following cytokines (CK): IL-2, IL-4, IL-5, IL-6, IL-10, IFN-γ and TNF-α in the T-cell lymphocytes (whole, CD4+ and CD8+). There were 13 HV and 59 CHD patients (36 HCV(–) and 23 HCV(+)). Amongst the latter, there were 32 men and 27 women, aged 59.5 ± 2 years, undergoing CHD since 70 ± 9.4 months. We found that: (1) the total number of lymphocytes as well as those expressing CD3, CD4, or CD19 were significantly decreased in CHD patients as compared to those from HV; (2) the total number of lymphocytes as well as their different subsets were similar in HCV(+) and in HCV(–) CHD patients; (3) the frequency of T-cell-expressing IL-5 or IL-10 was always low (