Journal of Dental Research, Vol 61, 1408-1412, Copyright © 1982 by International & American Associations for Dental Research Online Journals
Isolation and characterization of inflammatory cells from the human periapical granuloma
M. H. Stern, S. Dreizen, B. F. Mackler and B. M. Levy
Twelve histologically-confirmed periapical granulomas were evaluated by
conventional immunologic rosette assays for the presence of T-lymphocytes
and complement receptor-bearing lymphocytes. A technique for dispersing the
granuloma cells into suspensions was adopted to facilitate performance of
the assays which were not applicable to tissue sections. Differential cell
counts by an acridine orange vital dye method disclosed that the cell
suspensions contained 30% macrophages, 44% lymphocytes, 15% plasma cells,
and 12% neutrophils. Complement receptor-bearing cells comprised 17.9%, and
T cells comprised 34.5% of the unseparated inflammatory cells. This study
provides the first direct evidence of a predominance of thymic-derived
lymphocytes in the lymphocyte compartment of the periapical granuloma.
Analysis of the data shows that cell-mediated immunity most likely plays a
role in the pathogenesis of the periapical granuloma.
