tannins and Tuberculosis--Pulmonary

Different parameters of the immunologic response have been studied in young and aged subjects before, during and after administration of increasing doses of tuberculin purified protein derivative (PPD). In both age groups, a considerable increase in skin reaction was observed with the progression of antigen administration. This is particularly striking among old subjects, who before the treatment had either no reaction to tuberculin or a very weak one. Increased production of circulating antibodies to tuberculin was also consistently observed. The treatment resulted, especially in the old patients, in an increase in the lymphocyte sensitivity to phytohemagglutinin. The production of migration inhibitory factors was studied with lymphocytes from 6 treated subjects, in all cases this production was of the same degree as the one obtained from lymphocytes of PPD-positive untreated subjects. Lymphocyte cultures done during the treatment showed an absence of response in the presence of tuberculin, and in young patients only a slight increase in the spontaneous synthesis of desoxyribonucleic acid in the absence of tuberculin. These results demonstrate that in old people the depression of cellular immunity seems to be small. Adequate and prolonged antigenic stimuli are able to reactivate to approximately normal levels many features of this altered function.

Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Animals; Antibody Formation; Cell Migration Inhibition; Cells, Cultured; DNA; Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; Guinea Pigs; Hemagglutination Tests; Humans; Immune Sera; Injections, Subcutaneous; Lectins; Leukocyte Count; Lymphocyte Activation; Lymphocytes; Macrophage Migration-Inhibitory Factors; Macrophages; Skin; Tannins; Tuberculin; Tuberculin Test; Tuberculosis, Pulmonary