Effects of oral glucocorticoid therapy on CD4+CD25+CD127- and CD4+CD25high T cell levels in asthmatic patients.

Our purpose was to evaluate the effects of short-term oral glucocorticoid (GC) treatment on frequencies of T cells with putative regulatory phenotype (namely, CD4+CD25+CD127- and CD4+CD25high) in patients with asthma exacerbations. In addition, we sought to determine frequencies of above T cell subsets in adult asthmatic patients in relation to disease severity and different treatment regimens. The analysis was performed in 62 patients with different stages of asthma and ten healthy controls. Polychromatic flow cytometry was applied to delineate T cells with CD4+CD25+CD127- and CD4+CD25high phenotype. Exhaled nitric oxide analysis was used to assess allergic airway inflammation. Levels of neither CD4+CD25+CD127- nor CD4+CD25high T cells were significantly altered after 7-day oral GC treatment. Importantly, there were no detectable differences in frequencies of those cells among studied groups of asthmatics with different severity of disease and healthy controls. Moreover, levels of CD4+CD25+CD127- and CD4+CD25high T cells in asthmatic patients were not correlated to exhaled nitric oxide concentrations. Our data indicate that neither effects of average doses of oral GC treatment nor disease severity are related to changes in frequencies of CD4+CD25+CD127- and CD4+CD25high T cells in adult asthmatic patients.