On the significance of chemiluminescence induced by the blood polymorphonuclear leukocytes. I. Normal values.

In spite of the fact that chemiluminescence (CL) produced by the in vitro stimulated polymorphonuclear leukocytes is now a current method for the quantitative measurement of phagocytosis, its clinical use is still limited due to some controversies mostly technical. By comparing the different forms of presentation of the results, we proposed as stimulation index, the ratio of CL in the stimulated sample to that in the nonstimulated as measured at the same time interval and in the same number of cells (1 x 10(6)/ml). Measurements performed in a group of 200 healthy individuals, aged 20-70 years, with various occupations showed wide large variations of both the stimulation index of 23.5 +/- 12.3 and in a lesser degree of the CL kinetics. We suggest different possibilities of interpretation of the results obtained by this method (both the stimulated index and the CL kinetics) in order to obtain maximum information concerning the cellular immunity for clinical use.