Increased T-cell cytoplasmic IL-4 is more frequent in late CTCL stages, correlates with T-cell immunophenotype changes found in advanced disease and is associated with clonality. Increased cytoplasmic IL-4 is frequent both in erythrodermic MF and SS patients, in contrast to other variables found increased only in SS, suggesting that IL-4 may be an early indicator of disease progression. Moreover, our results show that increased cytoplasmic IL-4 is the sole predictor of advanced CTCL disease and confirm the relevance of FC determination of IL-4 in the routine evaluation of CTCL cases.

Serum testing of anti-Dsg1 and anti-Dsg3 in PV patients not only provides significant correlations with IIF, treatment and disease type, but may serve as a monitoring tool for clinical course and treatment guidance.

Background: Psoriasis is a T-cell mediated autoimmune disease. The objective of this work was to investigate the presence of cellular and soluble activation molecules in the blood of patients with psoriasis, not responding to local treatment and to study the effect of cyclosporin A (CsA) on these markers. Methods: Twenty-seven patients and 30 healthy controls were included in the study. The results were evaluated at baseline and at 15 days, 3, 6 and 12 months following initiation of treatment. Results: We found increased baseline values of lymphocytes and cells expressing the marker CD3+CD25+, CD54+ (ICAM-1) and CD58+ (LFA-3). Following CsA treatment, a significant decrease in the percentage of activated T cells expressing CD3+CD25+ and CD3+HLA-DR+ was noted at 6 and 12 months. Among the soluble factors studied, increased baseline serum levels of sIL-2R, sCD23 and neopterin were observed. CsA significantly reduced the levels of sIL-2R and IL-12. Conclusion: Although there is evidence for systemic immune activation in psoriasis, sIL-2R is the most consistently increased activation marker, related to the Th1 immune response, that may be used as a marker for monitoring disease activity and response to treatment with CsA in psoriatic patients.