Functional activity of immune cells in female MS-patients.

Since the well documented immunological disturbances in patients suffering from multiple sclerosis are especially attributed to T-cells we felt it expedient to look also for the functional activity of lymphocytes, monocytes, granulocytes and natural killer cells in the peripheral blood of female MS-patients (n = 17) and healthy controls (n = 17). While MS-patients showed decreased levels of total lymphocytes, CD2(+)- and CD8(+)-cells the percentage of HLA-DR(+)-monocytes was increased, indicating a high activity level of these immune cells, whereas we could find no differences in the functional tests of monocytes, granulocytes and natural killer cells between MS-patients and healthy controls. The percentage of HLA-DR(+)-T-lymphocytes increased with the duration of the illness and support the stronger consideration of clinical staging.