The Clinical Trajectory of Peripheral Blood Immune Cell Subsets, T-cell Activation, and Cytokines in Septic Patients

Objective And Design: Changes in the immune status of patients with sepsis may have a major impact on their prognosis. Our research focused on changes in various immune cell subsets and T-cell activation during the progression of sepsis.

Methods And Subjects: We collected data from 188 sepsis patients at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine. The main focus was on the patient's immunocyte subset typing, T-cell activation/Treg cell analysis, and cytokine assay, which can indicate the immune status of the patient.

Results: The study found that the number of CD4 T cells, CD8 T cells, NK cells, and B cells decreased early in the disease, and the decrease in CD4 and CD8 T cells was more pronounced in the death group. T lymphocyte activation was inhibited, and the number of Treg cells increased as the disease progressed. T lymphocyte inhibition was more significant in the death group, and the increase in IL-10 was more significant in the death group. Finally, we used patients' baseline conditions and immunological detection indicators for modeling and found that IL-10, CD4 Treg cells, CD3HLA-DR T cells, and CD3CD69 T cells could predict patients' prognosis well.

Conclusion: Our study found that immunosuppression occurs in patients early in sepsis. Early monitoring of the patient's immune status may provide a timely warning of the disease.