Abstract
Background and Objectives: Ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD) are immune mediated disorders of the intestine. Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a functional, multifactorial disease. Several lines of evidence support the hypothesis that a low-grade mucosal inflammatory process may play a role in IBS pathogenesis. In this study we evaluated T cell population in colonic mucosa of IBS and IBD patients.
Materials and Methods: In analytical descriptive study, 83 patients including 35 patients with ulcerative colitis and 48 patients with IBS compared with 37 healthy volunteers. Tissue samples was tacked by colonic biopsy during colonoscopy and evaluated by histological and Immunohistochemistry (IHC) ways.
Results: Thirty five patients with ulcerative colitis and 48 patients with IBS and 37 samples in patient who were underwent colonoscopy for another reason and they had normal results were also studied. CD4+ and CD8+ T population in IBS patients with similar to healthy volunteers and their ratio were not difference between them but in ulcerative colitis CD4+ T cell counts and ratio of CD4+/CD8+ were significantly higher than healthy volunteer (p<0.001) and CD8+ counts were lower in comparison of IBS and healthy volunteer (p<0.001).
Conclusion: Results of this study revealed that a CD4+ and CD8+ T cells infiltration does not have an important role in IBS mucosal immunity dysfunction.