[Evaluation of the activity of liver and spleen macrophages in children with hepatitis A and B].

To form a judgement about function of liver and spleen macrophages (MP) in vivo, use was made of dynamic scintigraphy with Tc-colloid. Sixty-seven children aged 5 to 14 years were examined. Of these, 45 children were afflicted with virus hepatitis B (VHB), 16 with virus hepatitis A (VHA), and 6 children had VHA associated with asymptomatic HBsAg carriership. There was an appreciable decrease of the activity of liver MP attended by consistent compensatory activation of spleen MP in all the etiological types of virus hepatitis. The changes seen in patients with VHA and VHB turned out similar, differing in the rate of the recovery of normal correlations, which was more rapid in VHA. The characteristic feature of liver and spleen MP function in patients with VHA associated with HBsAg carriership consisted in the lack of the compensatory reaction on the part of spleen MP, which was likely to be connected with overstrain of long standing and depletion of the MP system due to permanent antigenic stimulation of HBsAg. The relationship was disclosed between the activity of organ MP and the phase of the infectious process, its gravity and course as well as the character of the patient's premorbid status and intercurrent infection.