Phagocytic activity of granulocytes and alveolar macrophages after burn injury measured by chemiluminescence

Abstract Despite substantial progress in handling the acute phase, about 50 per cent of all severely burned patients are still subject to lethal infections during the later stages of the burn disease. Such patients frequently succumb to infections by opportunistic bacteria and viruses of normally low virulence indicating that the antiinfectious host defences are severely compromised. The present study was conducted in order to evaluate the effects of severe thermal injury on the two major categories of phagocytic cells, the circulating phagocytes of the blood and the alveolar macrophages as one population of the fixed phagocytes of the reticulo-endothelial system. The cells were isolated from burned and unburned rats. For quantitative assessment of the phagocytic function the chemiluminescence associated with the phagocytosis of opsonized zymosan particles was measured, using luminol as a chemiluminigenic probe. It turned out that as a consequence of the thermal trauma the phagocytic activity as measured by chemiluminescence is reduced in granulocytes as well as in alveolar macrophages.