Phagocytic activity in Familial Mediterranean fever

Familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) is an autosomal recessive disease. Altho ugh the possibility of multiple immunologic mechanisms have been studied, t he actual mechanism is still unresolved. Forty-one patients with FMF (24 ma les and 17 females with a mean age and disease duration of 17.8+/-4.1 and 4 .7+/-2.3 years, respectively) and 14 healthy controls (10 males and 4 femal es with a mean age 23.2+/-5.1) were involved in the study. A phagotest was studied in both the patients and control groups with a FACScalibur Flow. Al l patients were in the acute stages of the disease and had not undergone co lchicine treatment for 2 months. The percentage blood phagocytic activity o f both granulocytes and monocytes were 84.23+/-8.76 and 67.28+/-10.15 in th e patient group and 94.68+/-3.24 and 76.23+/-5.7 in the control group, resp ectively. There was no statistically significant difference in the percenta ge of phagocytic activity of the granulocytes and monocytes between the FMF patients and healthy controls (p>0.05 and p>0.05, respectively).