B. Crestani et al., INTERLEUKIN-8 AND NEUTROPHILS IN SYSTEMIC-SCLEROSIS WITH LUNG INVOLVEMENT, American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine, 150(5), 1994, pp. 1363-1367
Citations number
34
Categorie Soggetti
Emergency Medicine & Critical Care","Respiratory System
We investigated the mechanisms and consequences of neutrophil accumula
tion in the airspace in 11 patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) and
interstitial lung disease. Seven normal subjects served as controls. W
e measured total neutrophil elastase burden, elastase activity, and al
pha-1-antitrypsin (alpha1AT) in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid an
d we evaluated the in vitro interleukin-8 (IL-8, a potent chemoattract
ant for neutrophils) secretion by alveolar macrophages (AM). A mild ne
utrophil alveolitis was observed in patients when compared with contro
l subjects. Total BAL elastase burden was higher in patients than in c
ontrol subjects and correlated positively with the percentage of neutr
ophils in BAL. BAL elastase activity was undetectable in control subje
cts, but it was detected in all patients but one (mean:257 +/- 87 mU/L
). Spontaneous IL-8 secretion by AM was higher in patients with SSc th
an in control subjects (518 +/- 115 versus 228 +/- 65 ng/ml, p = 0.04)
and positively correlated with the percentage of neutrophils in BAL (
r = 0.505). We conclude that (1) the neutrophil could participate in t
he pathogenesis of SSc lung disease through the release of elastase; (
2) the AM could contribute to the influx of neutrophils in the alveolu
s through the release of IL-8.