[Variations in the phagocytic potency of circulating leukocytes from rats which received a thermal injury. Effects of an immunostimulation with Corynebacterium granulosum (author's transl)].

Experiments were carried out to study in vitro the variations of phagocytic activity of circulating leukocytes from rats which received a thermal injury and were either immunostimulated or not by a single iv injection of C. granulosum. The thermal injury which was applied at about 10 percent of the body surface was of an intermediary type ; it developed towards necrosis before cicatrising on about the 30th day. Phagocytic activity was expressed as the percentage of "active" phagocytes or of those cells which phagocytosed Sta. aureus and S. typhi murium. In not immunostimulated rats, the phagocytic activity was profoundly depressed as a result of the thermal injury ; this was most marked at about 8 days after the thermal injury (close to 38% compared with 80% in control-not-burned-rats). The phagocytic potency or circulating leukocytes from burned and immunostimulated rats corresponded at about the 8th day to that of healthy rats. The reported variations are statistically significant, as assessed by the Student "t" and X2 tests. Our study showed that those rats which were burned in our experimental conditions responded favourably to the immunostimulation. It would be interesting to check whether the use of anaerobic corynebacteria in man could represent an adjunct treatment of those septic complications which are so frequent in severe burns.