Distribution of Peripheral Lymphocyte Populations in Primary Sjögren’s Syndrome Patients

Table 3

Distribution of CD4⁺ lymphocyte subpopulations in peripheral blood of pSS patients and controls.

Patients	^1I-controls	^2II-pSS Abs^−	^3III-pSS Abs^+
				I-II	I-III	II-III
CD4^+ lymphocyte populations
CD4^+CD25^+
%^4	10.00 ± 10.94	9.72 ± 6.1	11.64 ± 9.38	NS	NS	NS
A. count^#	183.6 ± 222.3	132.7 ± 106.0	106.1 ± 75.89	NS	0.036	NS
CD4^+CD25^high
%^4	1.97 ± 1.342	2.45 ± 1.71	2.71 ± 1.83	NS	NS	NS
A. count^#	32.13 ± 25.88	31.81 ± 25.92	24.39 ± 13.50	NS	NS	NS
CD4^+FoxP3
%^4	4.56 ± 4.73	5.19 ± 6.69	5.012 ± 4.68	NS	NS	NS
A. count^#	75.25 ± 82.62	59.45 ± 72.83	62.62 ± 105.0	NS	NS	NS
CD4^+CD25^+FoxP3
%^4	1.12 ± 2.09	1.10 ± 0.90	0.90 ± 0.63	NS	NS	NS
A. count^#	19.12 ± 42.33	13.19 ± 10.79	10.21 ± 13.65	NS	NS	NS
CD4^+CD25^highFoxP3
%^4	0.27 ± 0.34	0.36 ± 0.31	0.35 ± 0.27	NS	NS	NS
A. count^#	4.45 ± 6.9	4.039 ± 2.91	3.26 ± 2.81	NS	NS	NS
CD4^+CD25^lowFoxP3
%^4	0.84 ± 1.75	0.78 ± 0.73	0.57 ± 0.51	NS	NS	NS
A. count^#	14.57 ± 35.46	9.64 ± 9.612	6.71 ± 12.78	NS	0.017	NS
Th17
%^4	2.08 ± 1.31	0.85 ± 1.08	1.51 ± 2.89	0.0003	0.004	NS
A. count^#	34.44 ± 21.02	9.12 ± 10.89	10.89 ± 22.71	<0.0001	<0.0001	NS

I group: healthy controls; ²II group: pSS patients without anti-SSA/SSB; ³III group: pSS patients with anti-SSA and/or anti-SSB; %⁴: proportion of all CD4⁺ lymphocytes; A. count^#: absolute count of cells in 1 μL of blood. ^*Mann-Whitney test. NS: not significant.