Leucocyte function in patients with rheumatoid arthritis: quantitative in-vivo leucocyte mobilisation and in-vitro functions of blood and exudate leucocytes.

Quantitative leucocyte mobilisation in vivo and the in-vitro random migration, chemotaxis, phagocytosis, and oxidative metabolic activity were studied in 15 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Patients mobilised leucocytes to chambers covering skin windows to the same degree as control subjects, and the mobilisation correlated with the blood leucocyte numbers and serum concentration of alpha-l-antitrypsin. Peripheral blood leucocytes showed slightly reduced migration in Boyden chambers but increased phagocytosis and increased unstimulated reduction of nitroblue tetrazolium. Exudate leucocytes from patients with RA showed migratory and phagocytic activity which did not differ from that of control subjects, but unstimulated exudate leucocytes reduced nitroblue tetrazolium more actively than leucocytes from control subjects. The observations indicate that leucocyte accumulation at an experimental inflammatory lesion and the function of these exudate leucocytes are not impaired in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.