Beatrix Irinyi, Magdolna Aleksza, Péter Antal-Szalmás, Sándor Sipka, János Hunyadi, Andrea Szegedi
DOI: 10.1080/000155502320323199

The aim of this study was to investigate the characteristic cytokine pattern of patients with chronic idiopathic urticaria. Using flow cytometry, we examined the frequency of IL-4, IL-10, IL-13 and IFN-? producing CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells at a single cell level. In patients with chronic idiopathic urticaria, the frequency of IL-10 producing CD4 + and CD8+ T cells was significantly higher than that of control subjects, while the frequency of IFN-? producing helper and cytotoxic T cells was significantly lower. The proportion of IL-4 producing CD4+ T cells from patients with urticaria was significantly lower. The ratio of IL-4 producing CD8+ T cells and the proportion of IL-13 producing CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes did not show any significant difference between patients and controls. In our study, we could observe neither a dominant Th1 nor a dominant Th2 type cytokine pattern. We found a significant elevation in the intracellular IL-10 level which may be the cause of the down-regulated Th1 and Tc1 and partly Th2 lymphocyte functions.