| BACKGROUNDAcute spinal cord injury (SCI) is one of the most devastating and life-altering injury of all injuries compatible with life. It is mostly caused by motor vehicle accidents, falls, sports injuries and some other wounds. Most of the victims are aged less than 40 years, with the highest proportion of injuries reported in those between the ages of 15 and 35 years. With the improvements and developments of acute trauma care, the mortality rate has decreased from 50% to 6% nowadays, but it is relatively raised during the following stage of the disease for the reason of the infections to the patients.The phenomena of the depression of immune reactivity following traumas had been mentioned since 1970', which included the decreased function of the white blood cells, the diminished antibodies production by the B lymphocytes and the decreased transformation function of lymphocytes et al. People realized that the suppression of the immune function following traumas or injuries was the main reason of infections. It's found that the lymphocytes function was suppressed in the SCI patients. SCI can result in the obstacles of specific and non-specific immune function. And the lymphocytes function in the specific immunity was seriously damaged, including the supression of T lymohocyte and natural killer cell activity. Some researches show that when the SCI patients suffered from infections such as viruses, which would result in the enhanced lymphocytes infiltration in the injured region of the spinal cord and aggravate spinal cord injury. The clinical studies suggested that the SCI patients were liable to opportunity infection of the urethra, lungand skin. In conclusion, besides the medicine treatments such as the use of antibiotics, the raise of the immune function of organism after injuries is very important, which can prevent or avoid the occurrence of infection, reduce the patients' complications and the mortality rate in late period and improve the life quality. Recently some researchers have focused their interests on this field and have acquired some important new insights, but there are still many problems to be solved.OBJECTIVEWe intended to clarity the alterations of the peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets following acute spinal cord injury and investigate the possible mechanism of these changes and its significances. On the other hand, to investigate the effect of the Chinese medicine Huangqi on the alterations of the peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets following acute spinal cord injuries for the further use in clinical works.METHODSThe SCI models of rats were made by Allen's method. Then the CD4 and CD8 subsets of the peripheral blood lymphocyte of the injured rats were determined by immunofluorense labelling and flow cytometry at different time post injury. In part one study, we observed the changes of the CD4 and CD8 subsets of the peripheral blood lymphocyte in different injury energy SCI group. In part two study, we observed the effects of the Chinese medicine Huangqi on the alterations of the peripheral blood lymphcyte subsets following acute spinal cord injuries. In part three study, we determined the expressions of CD3, CD4, CD8, CD19, CD69, CD56 and CD54 of the peripheral blood lymphocyte in 15 cases of acute spinal cord injury, and the data were compared with those in the healthy donors.RESULTSIt was found that the expression of CD4 and the ratio of CD4/CD8 were significantly reduced during the period of spinal shock in SCI group. It reached normal level in the ninth day post injury, but in SCI group with 200gcm injury energy the expression of CD4 and the ratio of CD4/CD8 were still significantly lower than those of control. CDS has no significantly change in SCI rats.In SCI rats with the injection of Chinese medicine Huangqi, it was found that in the fifth day, the expression of CD4 was significantly higher than that of SCI rats without treatment, and also higher than that of SCI rats with the injection of saline. But continuous injection of Huangqi from the fif...
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