Analysis on peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets in children with critical hand-foot-mouse disease

Objective To study the variation of peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets and immune function in critical hand-foot-mouse disease(HFMD) children.Methods Forty cases with critical HFMD and thirty healthy children as controls were enrolled in the study.The percentage of lymphocyte subsets,including CD3+CD19-cells(T),CD3+CD4+cells(Th),CD3+CD8+cells(Ts),CD3-CD19+cells(B),CD3-CD56+cells(NK),in anticoagulative whole blood of patients from the two groups were determined by flow cytometry.Results Compared with normal controls,the Critical HFMD children showed an obvious decrease in percentage of CD3+CD19-cells,T helper cells,T suppressor cells,but obvious increase of CD3-CD19+cells.No significant difference was found in the ratio of Th/Ts and CD3-CD56+cells between the two groups.Conclusion There are functional disorders in cellular and humoral immunity in critical HFMD children.