The immune risk profile is associated with age and gender: findings from three Swedish population studies of individuals 20-100 years of age.

Earlier we identified an Immune Risk Profile (IRP) of very old individuals, 86-94 years of age, characterised by an inverted CD4/CD8 ratio and associated with persistent cytomegalovirus infection and an increase in the numbers of CD3+CD8+CD28- cells. In the present study we included data from a population-based sample in the age range of 20-79 years to examine the prevalence of individuals with an inverted CD4/CD8 ratio relative to age and gender across the entire adult lifespan. Immunological monitoring that was conducted included analysis of the numbers of T-cells in the subsets CD3+, CD3+CD4+, and CD3+CD8+ as well as CD3+CD8+CD28+, CD3+CD8+CD28-, and CD8+CD45RA+CCR7+.