[Various immune functions (with particular attention to NK cells) in young people with frequent episodes of pharyngitis].

Abstract

In four girls, selected during three years of ambulatory observations, the evolution of repeated upper respiratory tract infection events, under the immunologic aspect, has been studied. The group of girls, with age between 13 and 16 years, practically formed a small casuistry, as an experimental recruitment. With the aim to find the causes of the told infectious events, firstly were checked numerous immune functions, successively were evaluated only the ones that had resulted altered (percentage number of "NK" cells, complement "C3" fraction and "T4" lymphocytes). Particularly significative variations, toward diminution, of the "NK" cells number related to the most compelling school attendance periods were recognized. What observed could let hypothesize that stress and emotions , correlated to scholastic events negatively influence some immune functions, peculiarly the number of "NK" cells. To the lowering of these cells could correspond a facilitation and higher frequency of upper respiratory tract infections (with pharynx as an epicenter), likely by viral aetiology. The subsequent vicarious and/or compensatory intervention by other immune functions could allow, however, the spontaneous recovery, without chemotherapeutic recourse, of the infectious events, that could arise with higher frequency but, most likely, with lower seriousness than could happen when "NK" cells normally act.