Immunopathology of necrotising scleritis
- 1A Ray Irvine Ocular Pathology Laboratory, the Doheny Eye Institute, and the Department of Ophthalmology, Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- 2Department of Ophthalmology, Tokyo Medical University, Tokyo, Japan
- Yoshihiko Usui, MD, Department of Ophthalmology, Tokyo Medical University, 6-7-1 Nishi-shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0023, Japan; usuyoshi{at}aol.com
- Accepted 2 December 2007
Abstract
Aim: To detect the immunohistopathology of necrotising scleritis.
Methods: Immunohistochemical staining was performed on two groups of enucleated eyes with necrotising scleritis (systemic autoimmune disease and idiopathic scleritis). Deparaffinised sections were stained with CD3, CD20, CD68, CD8, CD4 and dendritic reticulum cells (DRC).
Results: Within the autoimmune group, about 43% of inflammatory cells stained positive with CD20, 35% with CD68, 17% with CD3, 8% with CD8, 4% with DRC and less than 1% with CD4. Within the idiopathic group of eyes, about 43% of cells stained positive for CD68, 23% for CD3, 17% for CD20, 7% for CD8, 1% for DRC and less than 1% for CD4.
Conclusions: The infiltrate within the group of eyes with systemic autoimmune disease suggests that the inflammation may be driven by B cells. However, the large numbers of CD68 cells found in both groups of eyes indicate that macrophages could play a role in the necrotising process.
Footnotes
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Funding: This study was supported in part by grant no EY03040 from the National Institutes of Health, an unrestricted grant from Research to Prevent Blindness Inc, New York, and grant-in-aid 19791294 for Scientific Research from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.
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Competing interests: None declared.
