Background and Objectives: Endometriosis is a benign, chronic disease, that negatively influences the quality of life of affected women and is responsible for a remarkable amount of infertility. The pathophysiology of the disease is still not clarified, but the insufficient immune surveillance plays a significant role in it. The phagocyte function of innate immune cells may play a role in the elimination of ectopic endometrium. The purpose of this study is to examine the phagocyte function of neutrophil granulocytes and monocytes, incubated in heat-inactivated and not-inactivated plasma samples from healthy women and from women with endometriosis before and after the surgical treatment. Materials and Methods: Blood samples were collected from eight preoperative and eight postoperative patients with endometriosis before and after the surgical treatment, and from 16 healthy patients as controls. Neutrophil granulocytes, monocytes and blood plasma samples were isolated. Cells were incubated in different plasma samples, and the phagocytic index was determined with a fluorescence microscope. Results: The phagocytic index of granulocytes and monocytes isolated from patients with endometriosis was significantly decreased compared to healthy women after the cells were incubated in their own plasma. Preoperatively isolated cells from patients with endometriosis demonstrated an improved phagocyte function after incubating them in plasma samples from healthy controls. In contrast, the phagocytic activity of cells from healthy women significantly reduced after being incubated in the plasma of preoperative endometriosis patients. The heat-inactivation of plasma samples did not affect the results. Conclusions: Active endometriosis lesions may produce heat-stable systemic immunomodulatory factors, which reduced the phagocyte function of peripheral monocytes and neutrophil granulocytes. The phagocyte function of these cells can be normalized after the complete surgical removal of endometriosis, which then demonstrates similar values as in healthy women.
Introduction: Recently, tumor-infiltrating immune cells have been studied in various cancers. However, fewer studies address the role of peripheral immune cells in the pathogenesis of cancer. Aim: Our aim was to investigate whether the phagocytic activity of peripheral monocytes and neutrophil granulocytes is affected by the removal of tumor in advanced ovarian cancer. Method: We investigated peripheral blood samples from 12 patients with advanced stage of serous epithelial ovarian cancer – which were collected before the optimal tumor reduction surgery and on the 7th postoperative day – and from 8 healthy women. After separation of monocytes and neutrophils, the cells were incubated with opsonized fluorescein isothiocyanate-labeled zymosan A particles as the target of phagocytosis. By using fluorescence microscope we counted the number of particles phagocytized by the cells and calculated the phagocytic index. Statistical analysis of the data was performed using analysis of variances method. Results: Preoperative phagocytic indexes of monocytes and neutrophils from patients were significantly lower than phagocytic indexes of the corresponding cells from healthy women. The phagocytic function of monocytes and granulocytes isolated from postoperative samples of patients significantly increased compared to preoperative values and reached the phagocytic indexes of monocytes and neutrophils from healthy controls. Conclusion: Based on our results we assume that the tumor and/or its microenvironment in ovarian cancer may produce factors that can depress the phagocytic function of monocytes and granulocytes. Since the phagocytic indexes increased following the cytoreductive surgery, it can be assumed that after the removal of the tumor, the production of these factors is reduced or eliminated. Orv Hetil. 2018; 159(33): 1353–1359.
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