GRANULOCYTE FUNCTIONS IN PATIENTS WITH INSULIN DEPENDENT DIABETES MELLITUS

It is often experienced that when diabetic children suffer from infections, the control of diabetes becomes difficult. It seems important to pay attention to the host defense mechanisms of diabetic patients. Some previous reports showed granulocyte dysfunctions in patients with diabetes. An integrated investigation regarding this problem was carried out.Chemotactic activity, random mobility, deformability, NBT dye reduction and adherence of granulocytes were measured in 20 patients suffering from insulin dependent diabetes mellitus.Chemotaxis was impaired significantly (0.66 ± 0.33 to the healthy con-trol). NBT dye reduction and adherence were normal. Random mobility and deformability were also normal, as a whole, but several subjects showed im-paired functions.The fasting blood glucose level, the daily amount of glucosuria, the glycosylated hemoglobin level, the daily insulin requirement and the duration from the onset of the disease were chosen as indices of the clinical state of diabetes in order to see the correlations with the granulocyte functions. As a result, no significant relationship was found between granulocyte functions and these indices.