44 research outputs found
Expansion of Regulatory T Cells in Patients with Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis
Frederic Geissmann and colleagues find that Langerhans cell accumulation in Langerhans cell histiocytosis results from survival rather than uncontrolled proliferation, and is associated with the expansion of regulatory T cells
Pulmonary Langerhans cell histiocytosis in an infant: Can passive smoking accelerate the disease progress?
Langerhans cell histiocytosis : A clinical and immunological study
Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH), previously known as histiocytosis X,
eosinophilic granuloma, Hand-Schüller-Christian or Letterer-Siwe disease,
is a rare disease with a reported incidence in childhood of 5.4 cases per
million children per year. The disease can present at any age but young
children are most often affected. It is characterized by an accumulation
of abnormal and clonal Langerhans cells in various organs such as the
skin, bone, lymph nodes, lungs, liver, spleen and bone marrow. The course
of the disease is unpredictable, varying from a spontaneously healing
isolated bone or skin lesion, to a chronic relapsing course resulting in
permanent consequences, or to a multiorgan disease that can be fatal.
The overall aim with this thesis has been to clarify the long-term course
and outcome of patients with LCH, to investigate methods to detect and
monitor disease activity and, finally, to elucidate if the HLA system may
play a role in the pathogenesis of LCH. Initially a follow-up study of 49
patients, with reviewed and verified pathology findings, seen at
Department of Pediatrics at the Karolinska Hospital 1962-1989 was
performed, 40 of whom underwent physical examination and laboratory
tests, as well as imagining (n=38). The 5-yr survival of 77% (17/22) in
multi-system disease was significantly lower as compared to the 100%
(27/27) survival of children who had singlesystem disease at diagnosis
(p=0.014). Late sequelae of the disease or its treatment had developed in
42% of the follow-up patients, leaving only 51% (23/45) of all patients
alive and healthy, at a median follow- up of 16 years, with the
corresponding figure being 67% (16/24) for single-system and 33% (7/21)
for multi-system disease (p=0.026). The late sequlae included diabetes
insipidus (15%), severe CNS- complications (10%, affecting 25% of
multi-system LCH patients), and late-stage pulmonary disease (11 %). The
serious permanent consequences in the lungs and the CNS were further
studied.
High resolution computed tomography (HRCT) revealed late-stage
radiographic abnormalities of the lungs (cysts and/or emphysema) in 24%
of the patients at follow-up. These patients more often had multi-system
rather than single-system LCH (p=0.01), were significantly older at
diagnosis (p<0.001), and had been more heavily treated with chemotherapy
and/or radiotherapy. They were also more frequently smokers (p<0.0001)
and most (70%) had had lung involvement at diagnosis. In two adults,
diagnosed with LCH in childhood, smoking preceded pulmonary involvement
by three years. We conclude that LCH patients should avoid smoking
tobacco and that patients with LCH should be informed about
smoking-related pulmonary morbidity.
In pulmonary LCH the physical examination is often unremarkable.
Chest-X-ray is a valuable screening method for detection and monitoring.
HRCT is more informative in monitoring the extent of the disease.
Pulmonary function tests (PFT) give a better picture of the current lung
function, and it is particularly valuable for monitoring alterations in
pulmonary function. Prolonged monitoring of the lungs is suggested for
smokers and patients with known pulmonary involvement.
One of the most feared permanent consequences of LCH is severe
neurological impairment. Patients with LCH-CNS were examined with
positron emission tomography (PET) scan. The ability to detect metabolic
changes in the CNS with PET provides additional information about the
activity of the disease, and PET may also be a valuable method to assess
the efficacy of therapeutic measures in LCH-CNS.
Although recent studies have revealed clonality in LCH lesions and that
Langerhans cells are immature with regard to phenotype as well as
function, the underlying cause of this enigmatic disease remains unknown.
The histopathological features of single-system and multi-system LCH are
highly similar, but it is not yet known whether these manifestations have
a common cause or whether each has a separate and distinct cause. In an
attempt to elucidate if the HLA system may play a role in the
pathogenesis of LCH, the largest reported pediatric cohort of ethnically
homogeneous LCH patients (n=84) was analyzed for HLA associations. We
found that patients with single-system LCH more often had the phenotype
HLA -DRB1*03 as compared to patients with multi-system disease,
suggesting an immunogenetic heterogeneity in the two clinical entities of
LCH and indicating that the HLA-DRB1*03 phenotype may play a protective
role against developing multi-system LCH