[The immune system in coronary atherosclerosis].

A considerable imbalance in humoral and cellular factors of immunity characterized by high B-cell activity associated with a relative T-cell deficiency has been revealed in patients with coronary heart disease. Immunological imbalance is characteristic for all the clinically pronounced forms of coronary heart disease, forming long before obvious lesions of the coronary arteries. This makes it possible to regard patients without coronarographically documented atherosclerosis as having functional form of the process pathogenetically identical to atherosclerosis according to immunological criteria.

[Cellular immune response to myelin basic proteins in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy].

Peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) of patients with dilatation cardiomyopathy (DCMP), CHD and healthy persons were investigated for the presence of sensitization to the protein basic myelin (PB) for characterization of an immunopathological process in DCMP. In half of the DCMP patients there was sensitization to MMP, the presence of cytotoxic MMP-specific lymphocytes, a decrease in PBL suppressor and proliferative activity, an increase in IgG and IgM biosynthesis and lack of the lymphocytic capacity for induction of specific suppressor activity to this protein. A conclusion of myelin damage in DCMP development was made on the basis of the data obtained.