The Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome is an X-linked immunodeficiency disorder consisting of the triad of frequent infections, eczema, and profound thrombocytopenia. We evaluated the effects of splenectomy on hemostatic improvement and subsequent clinical course in 16 patients with the Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome. All 16 had an increase in platelet counts to at least 100,000 per cubic millimeter after splenectomy, with the mean increasing from 19,900 per cubic millimeter preoperatively to 262,700 per cubic millimeter after splenectomy. In addition, platelet size, which is characteristically small in this disease, also became normal. Survival after splenectomy correlated with the prophylactic use of antibiotics. Five of seven patients not taking prophylactic antibiotics died of sepis within 33 months of surgery. The mean survival of the nine patients maintained with prophylactic antibiotics, however, was at least 91.4 months, with six of these patients still alive an average of 11.0 years or more after splenectomy. Thus, splenectomy is a useful therapy for a major cause of morbidity and mortality in this complex syndrome.
Twenty-four patients with aplastic anemia or acute leukemia were treated by marrow grafts from HLA-identical donors after conditioning with high doses of cyclophosphamide and/or today body irradiation. They were studied between 4 and 63 mo (median 14.2) after transplantation. Seventeen patients had chronic graft-versus-host disease (C-GVHD) and 7 were healthy. They were studied for defects in their T- and B-cell function using and indirect hemolytic plaque assay for Ig production after 6 days of culture in the presence of pokeweek mitogen. T or B cells from the patients with or without C-GVHD were cocultured with T or B cells from their HLA-identical marrow donors or unrelated normal controls. Intrinsic B-cell defects, lack of helper T-cell activity, and suppressor T-cell activity were more frequently found in patients with C-GVHD than in healthy patients. Fifteen of the 17 patients with C-GVHD showed on or more defects in their T-and B-cell function compared to only 3 of the 7 patients without C-GVHD. None of the healthy controls, including the marrow donors, showed defects in their T- and B-cell functions. These in vitro findings may be helpful in assessing the process of immune reconstitution and the immunologic aberration found after human marrow transplantation.
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