INHALATORY ANESTHETIC (HALOTHANE) ASSOCIATED CHANGES IN THE IMMUNE-RESPONSE IN MICE

The extent of surgery, the patient's age, health status and other fact ors may contribute to alteration of the immune system during anesthesi a and surgery. In addition; inhalatory anesthetics may cause acute and chronic toxicity because of the production of intermediate and end me tabolic compounds. The present work was undertaken to evaluate, both i n vivo and in vitro, if repeated doses of halothane were able to affec t the immune response in a murine model developed at our laboratory. W eekly doses of halothane were administered to mice subjected to no sur gery and three days after the last anesthetic-exposure, several immuno logic parameters were assessed. Results on the in vivo response to she ep red blood cells showed that halothane treatment increased the amoun t of specific antibody secreting B-cells, without affecting the delaye d type hypersensitivity reaction to the same antigen. In vitro studies on spleen cell composition showed that halothane re-exposure diminish ed the number of CD4(+), CD8(+) and B-cells. Such changes were not tra nslated into alterations on the mitogen-driven lymphoproliferation, as well as macrophage phagocytic and lytic Functions. Our results indica te that halothane re-exposure is able to modulate the immune response affecting both the number of antibody secreting cells involved in a sp ecific in vivo response, and the splenic lymphoid cell composition. Si nce such halothane-induced immune alterations might bias the results o f a wide range of physiological research, even those involving other s ystems, a careful selection of the anesthetic agent and methods by whi ch the compound is administered is advisable. (C) 1998 International S ociety for Immunopharmacology.