Asthma and lower airway diseaseLung T-cell responses to nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Section snippets
Study subjects
We recruited adults with COPD who were undergoing lobectomies for the treatment of lung cancer at Monash Medical Centre/Southern Health or Cabrini Hospital, Melbourne, Australia. Subjects had COPD defined by using standard criteria (FEV1/forced vital capacity ratio <0.7 and not fully reversible).21 Control subjects did not have airflow obstruction on lung function testing. The study was approved by the Monash Medical Centre/Southern Health and Cabrini Hospital research ethics committee, and all
Characteristics of subjects
Sixty-nine subjects had specimens obtained that were analyzed for their T-cell responses to stimulation with NTHi. Patients' characteristics are listed in Table I (and see Table E1 in this article's Online Repository at www.jacionline.org).
T-cell response to SEB
Subjects in the control and COPD groups demonstrated clear T-cell mediator/cytokine production to stimulation with SEB, thus demonstrating the validity of our method to measure lymphocyte responses. There were no significant differences in the responses
Discussion
This study shows that NTHi is an important pathogen that activates lung T cells in patients with COPD. This activation led to the production of cytokines previously been shown to be important in the pathogenesis of COPD.
Airway inflammation persists in patients with COPD despite the cessation of smoking. Hogg et al7 described the presence of large numbers of lymphocytes in the small airways, and these cells are thought to have a key role in driving the inflammatory process.24 Sullivan et al8
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2019, PulmonologyCitation Excerpt :NTHi has been shown to induce changes in COPD in an animal model52 and new strains are also associated with COPD exacerbations.53 This agent has also been shown to activate lung T cells and cause the expression of reactive oxygen species and proteases in patients with COPD.54 The vicious cycle of inflammation-infection increases exacerbations.
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Supported by a Strategic Grant, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University (to P.T.K.).
Disclosure of potential conflict of interest: P. W. Holmes has received one or more payments for presentations to general practitioners and has received one or more payments for travel from Novartis. The rest of the authors declare that they have no relevant conflicts of interest.