RHEUMATOID PERICARDITIS - NEW IMMUNOPATHOLOGICAL ASPECTS

Rheumatoid pericarditis (RP) is a well known extraarticular manifestat ion of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). It is not frequently diagnosed despi te its high reported prevalence in post-mortem studies. There have bee n no immunohistological studies of its presence in pericardial membran es. Here we report a complete immunohistological study of two RA patie nts with RP complications, using a panel of monoclonal antibodies (mAb s) for the recognition of B, T, and NK cells. Both cases showed strong and almost exclusive pericardial membrane infiltration of CD8+ T-cell s which was correlated with a higher than expected similar increase in the subset of peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL). These findings sugg est an important role for CD8+ T-cells in chronic Ra, especially in th is extraarticular manifestation of the disease.